Lara Croft (2013) - Trinity
by CerberusCroft
Summary: Command to Operative STOP Trinity is concerned STOP Acquisition of Star Phenomenon unacceptable STOP Sabotage of Axis operation imperative STOP / Work in progress. Restructuring pages & more chapters coming soon. Sorry for the delay of the new chapter, will be here soon.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The Asian man with the black suit and red tie was sitting alone at a table for two. The man was around the age of 50, had brown eyes and black hair. Well, what was left of his hair, anyway; he was severely balding. The restaurant was of a Chinese theme. Whilst every single table in the restaurant was taken, the sound level was quite pleasant. You could whisper to the person across from you while still making yourself understandable. At the same time, it wasn't too quiet; the soft buzzing of the people gave a nice and cozy touch. The man looked at his plate while slowly eating away at the many shrimps on it. The East Asian tunes were very distinctive, almost cliché. He was seated next to the large window which looked down the street. He briefly looked outside. It was dark and softly raining. He looked around the restaurant. Everyone seemed to have a good time with the people they shared their table with. Except for one couple in the corner to his far right. An older man and woman silently ate their food, with a morbid look on their face. He wondered what they had gone through. Maybe they lost a family member. He could also look directly in the kitchen, where several men were preparing all the orders that the one waitress would pass on to them. He thought it was odd, this looked like a good running restaurant in the middle of London, and yet, at a Saturday, they only had one waitress running around like mad. When the waitress noticed the man looking at her, she approached his table.

"Could I get you anything else, sir?" she asked politely. She was an English girl, probably around 25, blonde hair and blue eyes. So far for the Chinese theme.

"Yes, dear, you could" The man was sitting up straight and only slightly turned his head to the right while looking at her with a smile. "Another water with ice would be great, thank you."

"Certainly, coming right up!" she smiled and turned around, almost with a twist. Admirably, she's serving 12 tables on her own and does not show a sign of stress.

Another man had joined him at his table, but the Asian man did not look up at him, but instead turned to his shrimps again. The little plate where he deposited the shrimp tails began filling up. The other man was wearing a black sweater and dark cargo pants. He was of the caucasian race.

"We've found her, again." the recently joined man said, with a British accent.

"Congratulations." said the man with the red tie, still not looking up. "You're capable of doing something that anyone with half a brain and internet access is capable of doing."

"And" the man with the black sweater continued, slightly frustrated at the other man's remark. "We've followed her around for a couple of days. She still lives at her mansion, but comes outside far more often than two months ago. The other girl seemed to have moved in with her."

"I've asked you to make an assessment of whether or not she's ready for first contact. Not publicly available information."

"That's a hard assessment to make if you only allow us to follow her outside of her house now and then. If you let us bug her hou-..."

"No." the man with the red tie interrupted him. He lowered his voice. "This is a very delicate situation, if she finds out we've been following her, everything is ruined."

"Here you go, sir!" the waitress placed the water on the table, and then turned to the other man. "Could I get you anything?"

Her smile quickly disappeared when the man with the red tie abruptly told her that he's fine and didn't need anything.  
"Okay, let me know if you need anything else." She walked away.

"She seems to participate in society normally nowadays. And I think that's as much of an assessment you're getting without looking into her life more." said the man with the black sweater.

The man with the red tie swallowed his last shrimp, put the tail on the now full little plate and used his handkerchief to clean his mouth. He looked up at the man.

"Well then, I think it's time to invite her over."


	2. Recovering

**Recovering**

The months after Yamatai were hard, very hard. Not just on Lara, but on all surviving crew members of the Endurance. The first month they sought solace with each other, but eventually moved on to their family or other friends as well. The events on Yamatai, the horrors, shaped every single one of them in a different person.

"Lara." Sam called out. She popped her head around the corner of the study room Lara was in. "What do you want for dinner?"  
"I don't know, we'll get what you want" Lara answered without looking up from her laptop.

"That's what you always say… I've cooked the last couple of days, are you okay if we order a pizza?"  
"Yes, sure." Lara looked up. "With pineapple for me, please."

Lara initially wanted to go out and uncover more myths and legends, being led by her father's original work, but decided to postpone her global adventures indefinitely when she emotionally collapsed upon arriving back in England. All the things she had to do to survive, mainly killing delusional men, and the loss of Roth suddenly hit her and became to much. She spent most of her days in Croft Manor, reading her father's notes and stories of his discoveries over the years. How ever much she wanted to follow his leads, she couldn't find the inner motivation anymore. She found the most support at her best friend, Sam, and vice versa for Sam. Sam eventually moved in with Lara.

"Lara, sweety, are you okay?" Sam entered the study room.

"Sorry, yes." Lara smiled, obviously forced. "I was just focused on this."

"What is it?"  
"They're done excavating Yamatai."

A surprised look came over Sam her face. "Already? That's impossible, that big of an island? They've been there like what, 2 months?"

Sam walked over to Lara and stood behind her.

_**Archeologists find nothing worthwhile on suggested Yamatai-Koku island**_

_After a 2,5 months excavation of the island discovered by freelance treasure hunters, archeologists say that the rumour that the island was the host of the former "Sun queen" Himiko and her kingdom is false._

Sam didn't bother reading the rest of the article. "What the fuck?" Sam looked at Lara. "What the actual fuck? How is that even possible? And they said they would keep us informed. Fuck those bastards! They probably tried to excavate another island."

"I told you no one would believe us." Lara still stared at her laptop.  
"This isn't about anyone believing us! I mean, if they don't believe the sun queen Himiko was still alive, fine. If they didn't believe her freaking Stormguard was still alive, fine. But they can't just deny the existence of all the tombs, altars, paintings and ruins. Even if they did not witness the supernatural things that went on there, they cannot possibly deny that-..."  
"But they are. They are denying it." Lara looked up from her laptop. "I don't get it either."

"Let's call Thompson, he should explain himself." Sam went for the phone.  
"Sam, please use the phone for ordering pizza instead of calling the lead archaeologist. It's late in the evening which means it's in the middle of the night where he is."  
"I don't care! What the hell, we're reading this on an article? That means he knew for a while! He could've informed us at least!"  
"We'll call him in the morning, okay? Promise."  
"No. First I'll call him then I'll order your damn pizza." Sam started walking away. Lara heard her mumble on the way out. "Fucking bullshit…"

Lara returned to her laptop.  
_Lead archaeologist Harry Thompson says "In the past 2.5 months we have discovered several ruins on the island, which we can now confirm are in of no relation to Yamatai-Koku or Himiko and her kingdom. While we can understand why these treasure hunters initially had believes this to be Yamatai, we can now say with certainty that this is not the case."_

_The discovery of the island sparked the interest of archaeologists all around the world as it was believed to be Yamatai-Koku, the long lost kingdom of the Sun queen Himiko. The location of Yamatai-Koku has long been a debate between many scientists, historians and archaeologists. In 2009 an excavation started in Sakurai, Nara after the discovery of a large stilt-house which was believed to be in relation to Himiko. Thompson says that "our focus once again lies in Sakurai, Nara"._

_The Croft family, who played a large role in the discovery of the island, was unavailable to comment._

Unavailable to comment? That was odd, no one had to try contact Lara in the last few weeks. Certainly not about this. Whatever. She closed the laptop. She would deal with this in the morning.

Sam was moving on quicker than Lara was, or maybe she was just pretending. Maybe she was better at hiding her feelings about all that happened at Yamatai. Either way, they both decided that it would be beneficial for both if Sam moved in with Lara. Before Yamatai they had been best friends for a very long time and were inseparable. The events on Yamatai only strengthened that bond. Lara believed she would never find someone who she would have the same connection with as she does with Sam.

Lara joined Sam in the main living room. Before Yamatai, Lara lived in a small apartment in downtown London while working several jobs to pay for her tuition herself instead of using her parents' money. She loved it there, she loved taking care of herself, she believed it made her a better person. But when she came back she didn't have the motivation to start working again. She didn't have the motivation to maintain the little apartment, either. She moved into Croft Manor almost straight after coming back. She hated using her parents money, she never considered it her own - even after inheriting all of it. But at least she didn't have to look after the house here. There were people doing it for her, plus she could pay for everything to maintain the house solely with the interest she received from her fortune. Sam always thought it was weird that she didn't spend any of her money, only for necessities. "You can buy 10 sport cars and a house in rural London every single day of your life, and you'd still be unable to spend half of it before you die! What else are you going to do with it?!" Sam would say. It just didn't feel right. A month ago Sam forced Lara to go shop for a car. When she finalled caved in, she looked at second hand cars for a small fee, but Sam laughed it off and dragged her to a car dealer. They both settled for an Audi. A brand new big black Audi. She felt bad for a while, but she had to admit...It drives amazingly well.

Croft Manor was enormous. The study room Lara just left was a 15 by 15 meter large room, red carpet and all the walls were covered with wooden bookshelves, all filled with books. We can all guess what kind of books. The height of the room was high, you'd have to get on the wooden platform built inside the room to reach the top of the bookshelves. In the corner was a large wooden desk and a design chair. Lara spend most of her time in this room, it's where she felt best. The living room she just entered was downstairs. It consisted of an equally enormous television against the wall to the left, with two black couches in front of it. The floor was made of black rock-like tiles, but most of it was covered by carpets. Most of them actually had a special meaning. To the right was a fireplace and three red chairs around it, with little wooden stands beside the chairs.

Sam sat on one of the couches when Lara joined her.

"And?" Lara asked while sitting down next to her.  
"Your pizza is on the way."  
"That's not what I meant."  
"He didn't pick up." Sam said, agitated.

"I was thinking, maybe they're trying to cover it up." Lara answered.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Well, you don't have to be an archaeologist to figure out there's something special about that island. And we're talking about Thompson here. Plus he's been a long friend of my family. Maybe he doesn't want anymore publicity to the island for some reason."  
Sam stared at the wall. "Hmm, didn't think of that. Maybe you're right."

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation."

Sam looked at Lara and smiled ever so slightly. "I guess. Oh, by the way. Jonah called, if we want to eat at his tomorrow."

"God, yes." Lara said.

Jonah started his own seafood restaurant in Brighton, England. He, Sam and Lara were in regular contact. He decided to remain in England as he felt that would be best seeing as he would be close to Lara and Sam. He felt like they would regularly need him, and he would regularly need them. He tried to convince Reyes to stay as well, but Reyes wanted to leave everything behind. She moved back to America and now lives together with her daughter. His restaurant was doing quite well. Probably because most of the people who ate there thought they were eating divine food, he's that good of a chef. It's a cliché to say that you create a special bond with people if you've gone through horrific events together, but it's true. It's a connection you didn't know existed up until you experience it. And it helps with coping.

On the days when Sam and Lara would visit Jonah they would eat at his restaurant, stay late, help him close down. They would sit at a table after hours and talk, just talk about everything. Yamatai, how they were feeling, what they were doing nowadays, everything.

It's amazing what the human mind is capable of coping with, because despite all they've been through, all three of them seemed to be recovering.


	3. First Contact

**First Contact**

"Girl." Jonah said to a frustrated looking Sam. She was holding her phone to her ear."If he didn't pick up after the 15th time, he probably won't pick up the 16th time."

"I will keep calling him until he picks up." Sam answered arrogant.

"Sam." Lara added. "Let's try tomorrow, Thompson has been quite busy and he probably just wanted a weekend off or something, it's Sunday."

Jonah, Lara and Sam were sitting at a table in Jonah his restaurant around midnight. The restaurant was closed, but Lara and Sam helped Jonah close down and were enjoying a last cup of tea together before the girls would head home. It was quiet enough to hear what was going on on the other side of the call Sam was trying to make.

It was the voice of Harry Thompson "_You've reached the voicemail of Harry Thom-_..." Sam hung up. "Bastard." Sam said after putting her phone away.

Sam turned to Lara. "Lara, you have to admit this is just too weird."

Lara just looked down at her tea. Rooibos tea. Cinnamon tastes so nice. She loved cinnamon. She was once in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and they sold these cinnamon candy sticks, God, her stomach hurt for days, she ate so many. No sugar in her tea, just a bit of milk. The sugar would make it too sweet.

"Have you tried calling Harry Thompson his company?" Jonah asked.

Sam looked back at Jonah. "Uhm, yes, Jonah. I'm not stupid."  
"What did they say?"  
"They said they expect him back from Yamatai any moment." Sam took a sip from her tea. "Well, no. They said they expect him back from _his trip_ any moment." She corrected herself.

"It is weird." Lara suddenly added without looking up. She was using her spoon to twirl around her tea. "Thompson kept on calling us at least twice a week for the last couple of months and how excited he was. And how certain he was this was actually in relation to Himiko. And then out of the blue he doesn't contact us anymore for a couple of weeks, states the island holds nothing of value and disappears. The article was published on Friday, which means he stated whatever he did in that article even sooner than Friday. It's now Sunday and still we haven't heard of him, nor can we reach him? We even tried reaching his team, but no answers." Lara took a sip and then looked up. "Maybe we're being paranoid about it, but Sam is right, it's really out of the ordinary. Plus, I know Harry, he's not the one who would take a weekend off or something."

"You said it yourself." Jonah answered.  
"What?"  
"That he just might be taking a weekend off."  
Lara looked back down at her tea. "Yeah, I guess I was just trying to calm myself down."

Lara looked outside the window. Normally you'd have an amazing view of the sea, but now it was dark and rainy. You couldn't see anything except for the stars and the moon in the little parts of the sky not covered by clouds. Since the restaurant was near the sea, you could literally jump on the beach from the terrace of the restaurant. Brilliant. The restaurant was a wooden building, called, very originally, Chef Jonah's Seafood Restaurant.. One part of the restaurant was open on the terrace, facing the sea, and the other part was inside, divided by a wooden wall with lots of windows in it. The inside was decorated simple but cozy. The chairs at the wooden tables had red cushions on them. Above every table that was situated against a wall, was a torch burning, covered by glass. Above every table that was situated in the middle of the room hung a small chandelier. If you think about it, it is absolutely not how you'd expect a seafood restaurant to be decorated. Maybe that was part of why it was special. The floor was made of wood as well. At the very end was the bar, which was very popular in the summer. All the lights were still on. Sam always told Jonah to turn most of them off, or people would think the restaurant was still open.

Lara wondered how Reyes was doing. She thinks she resented her for bringing everyone in that mess. And she was right about it too. She begged for forgiveness countless of times. Reyes always told her to stop, and that she'd forgiven her, but she would look in her eyes and see that that wasn't true. Roth died. She missed Roth so much it still hurts every single day. But Reyes misses Roth too. He was the father of Reyes her child. Would Sam and Jonah know? Probably not. And Reyes would've probably preferred if they didn't. Not a day goes by when Lara doesn't think about the pain she caused to everyone, even though everyone keeps on telling her it wasn't her fault.

Sometimes she also feels guilty about Grim and Alex. Because they're gone, but also because she rarely thinks about them. Her mind is filled with what _she_ had to go through, what pain _she_ caused the others, and Roth. Rarely would her mind shift to Alex or Grim, and she felt extremely bad about it. God, she had such a hard time moving on, how does Sam do it so well?

Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a few loud knocks on the door of the restaurant.

"Holy shit, that scared the crap of out me. Who the hell knocks that loud?" Sam said while cleaning some of the tea she spilled off of her jeans. "Told you to keep those lights off, Jonah." she stood up and walked to the kitchen to get some tissues.

"Yeah, yeah" Jonah said as he was standing up and started walking to the door.  
Lara her neck hairs stood up. This was out of place. It was after midnight, it was raining like hell now, and the sign on the door said Closed. Or was she just being paranoid again? She heard Jonah open the door.

"I'm sorry, buddy." said Jonah while pointing at the Closed sign. "We're closed." Buddy...one would not have to spend a lot of time with Jonah to notice he wasn't even slightly British. That is, of course, if you hadn't already noticed it by how he looks.

"I know" the man answered. "but I'm just looking for shelter from the rain. Do you mind if I come in?"

Jonah looked back as if he was looking for approval and then at his watch.

"Please, I've been looking for shelter for quite some time now, and I'm getting extremely cold and exhausted. I'm not some homeless man trying to sleep the night, I just need to rest for a few minutes and have a warm drink. I'll be sure to make it worth your while." the man said while getting out his wallet.

"Buddy, you can keep your money, come in and I'll give you a cup of tea. Just know we're leaving soon." said Jonah while stepping away from the door opening to let the man in.

The man smiled and put away his wallet. "Thank you, sir. I greatly appreciate the kind gesture. I won't be long."

The man, wearing a black long coat, and dark cargo pants, entered the restaurant. His oddly bright, full, long blonde hair clashed with his clothes, specially on this dark night. He smiled and nodded briefly at Lara when he walked past her and took place at a table at the back of the restaurant next to the window.

"Coffee or tea?" Jonah shouted from the bar.

"Tea, please, thank you very much." the man answered as he placed his coat on the opposite chair of his, revealing his black sweater. There was a red sign on the back of his sweater. A circle with a T in it, in the circle three triangles were also pointing towards the T.

Sam rejoined Lara at the table while Lara explained her what the man was doing here. Jonah rejoined the girls when he gave the man his tea.

"So let's try again tomorrow." Jonah continued where they left off. "See if he picks up then."  
"What if he doesn't?" Sam immediately asked.  
"I don't know, Sam. Thompson believed this was Yamatai, I'm sure of it. If he doesn't pick up tomorrow, we'll call his company again and see what arrangements they are making to start looking for him. We'll go from there, alright?"  
"It was Yamatai, for sure, right?" Jonah asked frowned. "I mean, we weren't tricked or anything?"  
"Jonah. What the fuck." Sam growled. "Of course it was Yamatai, dear Lord, what's in your tea?"  
"I'm just saying. There was some crazy stuff going on there. You should know best, Sam. Who says we weren't fooled?"  
"I'm 100% sure it was Yamatai. Stop it." Sam said, lowering her voice to normal again.

"We should get going." Lara said while taking the last sip from her tea and putting her cup back down. "The food was, once again, absolutely delicious. Thank you so much, Jonah." She and Jonah stood up and gave each other a hug. "Always for you girls. You know you're always welcome."

When Sam stood up to give Jonah a hug, Lara heard the man behind her get up. He took his empty cup and walked towards the bar and put his cup on it. "Thank you again, Sir. How much do I owe you?" He said, while taking his wallet out again. Jonah immediately gestured to put it away again. "Nah, nah, it's alright, buddy. Don't worry about it."

The man smiled and went back to his table, got his coat then started walking to the exit. Sam and Lara were gathering their things from their seats when the man stopped next to them.  
"I deeply apologize for intruding but I overheard you talking about Yamatai-Koku, is that correct?" the man asked. The three looked back at the man but none of them answered straight away.  
After a few seconds Sam said "Yes. Yes, we were. What's it to you?"

"Oh, please, don't misunderstand me. It's just that I am very interested in Yamatai as well, you don't hear a lot of people talking about it. I recently heard that the new island that was discovered seemed to have no relation to Yamatai. I heard you talk about the lead archaeologist of that project, Mister Thompson. Are any of you close to him?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business." Said Lara.

The man put up a friendly smile. "I seemed to have pressed some buttons, I'm sorry. Let me introduce myself. I'm Connor Bennet, I work for the TAFDI, The Trinity Archaeological Findings and Discovery Institute. We're based in France. I'm here in the UK for business as we're giving seminars to our business partners on all the projects we have running at the moment at TAFDI. One of them also involves Yamatai."  
"Really?" Sam asked surprised. Lara looked at Sam, then back at the man. She couldn't be the only one who thought this was absurd.

"Yes, actually, that's also why I approached you, for which I, again, apologize. Would any of you three be interested in coming to the seminar? It's held tomorrow at 9PM, for a small audience. It's in the Charing Cross Hotel on Villiers street." The man reached into his pocket and got out three business cards. "Just show these at the door and they'll let you in." He quickly pressed his cards in the groups' hands.

"Ha." Sam said, while glancing at the business card. It contained Connor his name and contact details. "Who says we don't know more about Yamatai than you or your institute do?"  
The man smiled, as if he expected that answer.

"Well" he said in a very soft voice. "I'm sure that, how ever much you are aware of the current events regarding Yamatai, we have some information that will be of interest to you." The man continued his walk towards the door and took a last look back at Jonah. "Sir, I thank you once more for your generous gesture." he smiled and walked out the door.

All three were standing up next to their seats. Sam and Lara holding their coats with one hand, and the business card in the other hand. Jonah holding the business card with both hands. They were all looking at it, as if they expected something to happen. As if the business card would suddenly talk and explain to them what on earth just happened.

"Okay" Lara broke the silence. "I'm not sure what to think of this. This is so weird…" She looked up to her friends. "A man working for this so called archaeological company happens to stumble in here and overhear us talking about Yamatai. And he happens to give a seminar about-..." Lara didn't even finish her sentence. When she repeated the events that just happened out loud she realised how out of place it was. There was no way in hell that this was a coincidence. She ran to the door, quickly opened it, flew through the door opening, wanting to follow the man. She didn't really know why or what she would do. But she had to talk to him. She was standing outside in the rain, without a coat on. She looked left and right, nothing. No sign of the man. She ran beside the restaurant and reached the road. She looked both ways but couldn't see him. She ran back and across the terrace. She glanced at the beach. Way too dark to see. Fuck. Sam came out the door. "Lara!" Sam screamed. Only now Lara realised it had began storming. The wind was blowing hard and the rain was getting worse with the second. "What are you doing?! Come inside and get your coat! And let's go! It's still an hour of a drive!"

Lara and Sam didn't say anything to each other on the trip back. Probably both trying to figure out what just had happened. They spoke to Jonah about it and decided that it would be best to try and reach Harry Thompson one last time, tomorrow. Maybe he knew this Connor Bennet.


	4. The Seminar

**The seminar**

Normally he would press the floor button on any given elevator a dozen times rapidly. As if that would make the elevator get there any faster. But this time he only pressed once. Slowly. He was nervous, sweaty palms, deeper than normal breathing, moving his arms around more than any relaxed person would. He was really warm, would it be appropriate to be holding his coat rather than wearing it? Probably not. At least he exchanged his sweater for a t-shirt. Having his coat unbuttoned would be okay, surely? He went for it.

_*ding*_

The elevator doors opened. He was greeted by a hallway. It looked like a hallway of a fancy hotel. Probably because it was a hallway of a fancy hotel. Marble floor, red carpet, white walls, chandelier, polished wooden stand with a flower in a tiny vase against the wall. The hallway was about 15 meters far until it split into two different directions; to the left and to the right. The wooden doors on both sides were entrances to the hotel rooms. He started walking. The carpet felt soft and thick, did it consist of animal fur? What animal would-...No. Focus. He kept on walking until he came to the end, and looked to the right... then made a left turn. At the end was a wooden door, much like the rest he already passed, but this one was where he needed to be. Not wanted, but needed. Next to the door stood two bodyguards. They had to be at least 2 meters. Both bald, one black, one white. They were wearing a black suit with a black tie. Arms crossed on their chest. Jesus, these two defined the stereotypical bodyguard. He was amazed they weren't wearing tinted sunglasses inside. He reached the door and wanted to enter but was stopped by one of them.

"Oh for the love of...You've patted me down like ten times in the last week and a half."  
"Please spread your arms and legs, sir." The bodyguard replied, while holding his hand between him and the door steady.  
"Fine." He looked forward and spread his arms and legs. One bodyguard didn't move a muscle while the other patted him down. When the bodyguard was finished, and didn't find anything, he knocked on the door.  
"Yes." was the answer from inside.

"If I wanted to kill your boss, I wouldn't try and pass his bodyguards to try and shoot him in his face, don't worry."

The bodyguard only growled as a response. The man walked inside the suite, and heard the door being closed behind him. The room where he entered was just the lounge room. In the end was a door. Probably leading to the bedroom part of this suite. The room also had a marble floor, but did not have any carpets. To his right was a large window looking down on London. In front of it were two blue leather sofas, facing each other. One away from the window, one to the window. There was a large golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. To his left was a large marble bar, with a wooden top. Behind the bar was a shelve which was filled with bottles of wines and liquor. Too bad, no one behind it, he could use a drink. On the sofa facing towards the window sat an Asian man. He was balding, probably because he was getting older. 50+ at least. He was wearing a black suit with a red tie. He was reading The Times newspaper. He began walking towards the man. His shoe made a clicking sound on the marble floor.

"Mister Bennet." The Asian man said, without looking up from his paper. "Have a seat."

He took a seat on the sofa across from him. Extremely comfortable for such a hideous sofa. He tried to act confident. "Mister Mitani. I'd appreciate it if your two oversized gorillas out there wouldn't have to pet me down everytime. Pretty sure we're on the same side, you and I." He rested one arm on the sofas armrest and crossed his legs.

The Asian man pretended he did not hear him. "I hope you have good news for us." He said.  
"I invited all three of them. 9PM. As you asked." Connor immediately replied.

"Ah." he still did not look up from his newspaper. "I gave you an extremely simple task, which you then proceeded to execute, and came back here all the way to tell me about." he flipped a page. "Yet you compare my two associates outside with monkeys. Odd."

Connor Bennet didn't answer. Fuck this guy.

He continued. "I assume you've made sure that they will be here tonight?"

"No."  
He looked up from his paper, lifting his left eyebrow. "No?"  
"No." Said Connor again. "I didn't feel that was necessary yet. "

The Asian man his face relaxed again but looked at him thoroughly, as if making sure he was actually the man he was talking to. There was a silence which seemed to take minutes instead of seconds. He moved his head back down, continuing reading the newspaper.  
"What if they don't show up?"

"I'm pretty sure they-..."  
"That was not my question." He interrupted him.  
"If they don't show up, I'll have to be a bit more persuasive. Which will not be a problem." He switched his crossed legs so his left leg was the upper one. Aah, blood flow.

"And everything is prepared for the trip to Kuhikugu, Brazil?"

"Yes, everything is set."

Silence again. Seconds. A minute. Two minutes. The man had flipped another page.

"Uh, was that it?" Connor tilted his head ever so slightly.

The Asian man looked up. "Hmm?"

"Was...there anything else?"  
"Do you have anything else to discuss?"  
"No."  
"Than that was it. We'll be in touch." He faced the paper again, continued reading.

Connor stood up and walked out the door, past the monkeys, and to the elevator again. Finally relaxing when the elevator made its way down to the ground floor, after pressing zero about a million times on the way down.

"Weirdo." Connor mumbled when he stepped outside and lighted a cigarette.

"I'm just saying we should be careful." Said Lara while lifting her fork filled with spaghetti to her mouth. Spaghetti bolognese. Magnificent. So easy to prepare, yet so absolutely delightful.  
"Being careful and not going are two different things. C'mon, we can find out what's going on _and _be careful at the same time." Sam answered. She was already done eating and was sitting across from Lara at the dining table. A very large, shiny wooden dining table. There were 10 chairs, only two were in use, at the very end. The dining room was directly adjacent to the living room. Which was weird because the interior was completely different than the living room. It was completely beige. The carpeting, the walls, the ceiling, the chandelier. But all a slightly different shade of beige, it looked really posh. It also looked extremely modern compared to the living room. The lights were engraved in the ceiling, one on each corner of the room. The windows were framed with black marble. And the doors were also beige, but had black handles. All in all, it gave out a very warm but posh vibe.

"It's in three hours." Sam continued. "We both know that there's some weird shit going on. We also both know we should find out what!"

"_wea, wuw righ, e shd go" _Lara answered.  
"Not with your mouth full, sweetie."  
Lara swallowed her spaghetti. "Sorry." She wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. "You're right, we should go. I'm just worried."  
"Lara, it's in a public place. Nothing is going to happen. We just need to find out wha-..."  
"Yes, yes. I know. I know we have to find out what's going on, I already agreed with you on that. I just, it's just...everything involving Yamatai freaks me the hell out, alright?" Lara took another bite.

"I know it does, me too."

Lara stopped chewing for two seconds and looked Sam in the eyes. She's scared too, Lara, she thought to herself. Stop being such a baby.

"Jonah can't come. Restaurant and everything." Sam said.

"Obviously." Lara replied, with her mouth half full again. Sam looked at Lara her plate, then back at her again. "How?"  
Lara looked up, still chewing. "What?" She asked.  
"How on earth do you eat so much and stay so super thin?"  
"I climb mountains."

They both laughed.

Sam gave the car keys to the valet guy next to the entrance of the hotel. As the valet drove off to the parking lot, Sam and Lara entered the hotel. Sam was wearing a nice black dress and managed to force Lara to at least dress up a _bit,_ a nice buttoned shirt and matching pants. They were going to a fancy place after all. Which could be added to the list of odd things, seminars about long lost islands aren't really fancy at all. Oh well, Sam loved dressing up so she sure as hell would use this as an excuse to do so. The reception hall matched that outside of the hotel; bright white with a touch of gold. Don't forget the red carpet, of course. They walked up to the receptionist and informed her they were invited by Connor Bennet for the TAFDI seminar. When they showed their invitations, in the form of business cards, to the lady she pointed them to the left. As they were walking to a large white door, Lara felt her stomach twist. What were they doing here? For all she knows, they could be in grave danger right now. Okay, Lara, calm down, it's going to be okay. Sam is right, you're in a public place. Everything is fine. She tried breathing more relaxed. Above the white door was a sign "TAFDI SEMINAR - INVITE ONLY". When they reached and went through, they stepped in a large conference room. About 50 chairs were facing a stage. See, Lara, all is good, she thought to herself. Only one person seemed to have arrived before them. Were they that early? Lara looked at her watch; 8:58 PM. Not that early. They decided to sit in the back row of the chairs, just to be extra safe. They sat down and waited, a few minutes passed and Lara looked at her watch; 9:05 PM. She started to get worried again. When she put her arm down again the man a few rows in front of them had stood up. It seemed to be a somewhat older man, probably in his 50's. He was Asian and was wearing a black suit with a red tie. He had a smile on his face when he walked towards the two girls. His eyes were focused on Lara and Lara looked back at him.  
"Ah." His smile got even bigger. "Miss Croft, I'm so pleased you could make it." He was still continuing his walk towards them.

Lara her mouth opened a bit. She didn't even know this man. Sam looked at Lara, as if she was asking that exact question. Lara her mind started racing, as well as her heart. Okay, she thought to herself, my family name isn't a secret in London. Google is your friend. No. No, stop rationalizing this. Something is wrong. Get the _fuck out of there._

She stood up and grabbed Sam her hand. They needed to get out of here now.  
"Sam, we have to get ou-..."  
She was interrupted by Sam her scream as she was looking past Lara, behind her. Just as Lara wanted to turn her head she felt a needle enter her neck. Just as fast as it entered, it was also removed again. She grabbed her neck as she felt her legs started shaking. Suddenly, she wasn't able to carry her own weight anymore and fell to her knees. A buzzing sound filled her ears as her hand was still on her neck. She fell forward and kept herself up, barely, with her hand on the floor. She looked to the left to check on Sam. There was a man holding her down while another injected her too. Lara fell to the ground, and was using all her willpower to keep her eyes open. She saw Sam fall down on the ground next to her.

"Sam…" Is all Lara could say. But Sam her eyes were already closed.

_Fuck._


	5. Brazil

**Brazil**

The events of the last few seconds before she passed out flashed in front of her when she abruptly awoke, before she even opened her eyes. No...no, please let this be a dream. Please. She opened her eyes. Still black. She moved her head slightly from left to right, there was a cloth bag over her head. She was in a sitting position, on a chair or something. She panicked and tried to get up but was pushed back when a very strong hand pushed her back in her seat.  
"It's best if you stay still for now." said a strange man, with a deep voice.  
"Fuck you! Who the fuck are you?!" Lara yelled. "Let me go!"  
"Miss Croft, please be silent, you'll be released from this position shortly."  
"No! Fuck you, asshole!" For a second she forgot how loud she could yell in stressful situation. "Let me go right n-..."  
The hand was even stronger than she anticipated at first. It slammed in her throat and pressed hard, immediately stopping all airflow to her lungs, and her ability to talk, let alone yell. She tried to attack the man, but her hands were tied. Fuck. Handcuffs? No, not metal. Rope? No, it was plastic. Cable ties, shit, shit.

"I implore you to keep your mouth closed for now."  
15 seconds since she had her last breath. She tried to move once more, but the force of the hand around her throat and a recently added hand, of the same size, to her shoulder was enough to keep her still. She tried her legs, also tied together, probably cable ties too. When she tried to lift both her legs she was stopped by an object in front of her. It felt like another chair.

30 seconds since she had her last breath. Her lower lip started getting a blue shade. Now she really started panicking. She wanted to agree to being silent but couldn't move, say or do anything.

40 seconds since she had her last breath.  
"I'm going to let go of you now, and I want you to be silent." The stranger continued. "If you are not, I will be a lot more persuasive than I am now."

She gasped for air when the hand was finally removed from her throat. It took her at least a minute and a half to reach a, somewhat, normal breathing rhythm again. Another five to calm herself down. Ok, yelling was of no help and she sure as hell wasn't getting up from this seat, time to orientate. Only now she realised they were moving. They were in a car, a moving car. Her arms were behind her back, and her wrists hurt from the cable ties. Not only were they to tight, she used all her strength to try and break them when she was nearly choked to death a few moments ago.

_Sam. _Oh, God. Oh, please be alright. She was mortified to open her mouth, but she had to ask. She had to.

"Where...Where's Sam?" Lara asked softly. Immediately the hand was placed back at her throat, but this time it didn't apply any force. It was intimidating. And it worked.  
She heard the man shift position. He moved his mouth close to the side of her head. "Make another sound." The man whispered eerily."I dare you. Seriously, make another sound, it'll be fun."  
Lara her breathing speed increased. She kept her mouth closed and didn't make a sound. The man removed his hand again and returned to his previous position.

It took what seemed like hours and hours before they reached their destination. The car she was in must've been soundproof, maybe toughened safety glass, because only when the door on her side was opened could she hear a plane fly over. She was at an airport, that was for sure, the plane flew over extremely low. She felt a hand on her knee and flexed all her muscles in anticipation, but she felt another one move around at her feet, and finally felt the cable ties at her feet being cut.

"Miss Croft, please step out of the car." said the man with the strong hands. She listened and stepped out. "Your friend is fine by the way." The man continued. "But if you start screaming or try and run away, we will put a bullet in her body for every second you're not listening to us. Is that clear?"  
"Yes." Lara replied silently.

"Good, now please start walking." She heard him step behind her and slightly push her shoulder to guide her in the direction she needed to walk in. After about two minutes of walking in a straight line, and hearing several planes fly overhead, the man made her stop and she heard him open a door. He made her step inside and closed the door behind her, then took the bag off of her head. It took a few seconds for her eyes to get used to the light again. They stood in a small hallway. The floor and walls were of a very light, worn off yellow color. The floor and ceiling were of concrete There were several fluorescent lamps, turned on, in the ceiling. One of them was flickering rapidly. To the left of them was a ticket window, which was closed. To the right some boxes, one of them read "Luton Airport". Now she knew where she was. Further down to the right was a staircase upstairs, and at the end of the hallway it took a left turn.

"Move." the man said. He was still behind her so she couldn't see what he looked like, and she didn't dare turning around. He guided her towards the staircase and she started climbing it. The wooden steps creaked beneath her feet. She looked down, All Stars? Why is she wearing All Stars? Oh, right. Dammit Sam. They reached upstairs and entered a hallway with similar colors. Only this time it went straight down and had doors on each side of the walls. She started walking when the man pushed her again, and stopped as they reached the fourth door on the left. He walked in front of Lara to open the door so she could finally take a look at him. It was a black man, very large, in height and width, not fat, but very muscled. He was wearing a black suit with a black tie with black shining shoes, all very orderly.

"Through here, please, Miss Croft." He said, to which Lara walked inside the room. The room was fairly empty except with boxes, like those downstairs, on the sides. The room was cut in half by steel bars which started at the floor and reached the concrete ceiling. The ceiling had one fluorescent lamp turned on, the other three were off, probably broken. There was a door with a lock on the right. On the other side of the bars sat Sam in tailor pose with her head down.

"SAM!" Lara yelled. Sam looked up. She wasn't crying right now, but she certainly had recently.  
"Lara!" She immediately got up. Lara wanted to run towards the bars but the hand on her shoulder managed to press on a specific spot on her shoulder so hard, it made Lara fall to her knees from the pain immediately. This man knew his tricks.  
"Ouch! Fuck. What the hell." Lara bit her lower lip and tried not to scream.

"Leave her the fuck alone you ugly motherfucking piece of shit!" Sam screamed. Her hands weren't tied so she grabbed two bars with both her hands and started shaking them, as if she could bend them outwards to step out. The large man didn't pay any attention to the girls and proceeded to pull Lara up and force her to the cell door, which he opened after unlocking it with a very big old fashioned key. He cut the cable tie on Lara her wrists, pushed her inside and promptly closed and locked the barred door behind them.

"My bossi will be with you shortly." The man said and walked out the room.

Lara and Sam hugged each other tight.

"Are you okay?!" Lara asked.  
"Yeah, I guess." Sam said as they let each other go. "They didn't hurt me. How are y-... Oh my God." Sam pointed at Lara her throat. It was red from where she was choked. "What happened?"  
"I've been through worse, I'll be fine." Lara replied while doing a head roll.

"Who are those people?" Sam asked.

Lara raised her eyebrows. "You expect me to know who these people are?"

"Don't be like that."  
"Sorry. I don't know who these people are, no." Lara walked towards the jail door and tried to open it, obviously without any avail. There weren't any windows in this room and the bars were placed tightly. No way of getting out.

"Lara, I'm scared. What on earth are we going to do?" Sam asked pouting.

"Don't worry, we'll think of something."

"What if they'll kill us?"  
"They won't."

"How do you know?"  
"Because if they wanted to kill us, they would've already done that a long time ago."

After they had been discussing their best course of action for about 15 minutes, a man walked in. He was Asian. They both looked at him and recognized him immediately. It was the man who had walked towards the girls just before they were injected with whatever knocked them out almost instantly. Now that Lara got an even better look at him, she realised he looked familiar.

"Miss Croft." The Asian man said as he nodded towards Lara. "Miss Nishimaru." He said while nodding towards Sam.

"Who the fuck are you?" Sam asked promptly.

The man smiled. "That is a very long story." He walked up to the bars. Lara nonchalantly looked around the room. "It seems we have the time." She answered.

"That is where you're mistaken, Miss Croft. But I guess a brief introduction from my side wouldn't hurt anybody. I'm sure you remember Mister Bennet? Connor Bennet?"

The girls didn't respond.

"Right, well I work at the same organization as him and am his superior."  
"And what exactly is your organization?" Lara asked. "Archaeological institutes generally don't kidnap people."

The man laughed briefly. "We will have time for all your questions when we are boarded on our plane."

"What plane?" both girls asked at the same time in disbelief.

"Our private jet. We'll be heading to Brazil."  
The girls waited for the man to explain why he would need to take them there, but he didn't.

"Why…." Sam began asking. "Why..why would you...who are you, seriously? What the hell is going on?"

"Again, we will have time for all your questions once we've boarded the plane. It's time for us to go now." The man smiled again. The man who guided Lara here entered the room once more and was accompanied this time, by what seemed his Caucasian counterpart. Two of them? Great.

"Now." The Asian man continued. "A, you can come with us quietly, or, B, we can force you to come with us. I honestly prefer option A."

The black man reached for the key and started walking towards the door. Sam grabbed Lara her hand. "I'm scared." She whispered. She was shaking. Lara didn't answer, but looked the man in the face that had opened the door and was holding it open.

"Please, come with us." He then proceeded move his jacket to one side to reveal a silver handgun tucked in his belt. Lara started walking, still holding Sam her hand and pulling her with her. There was just no way she could get out of this mess at this moment. They would have to play along for now. They went out the door, the Asian man upfront, followed by Lara and Sam. The two big men were walking behind them. They went down the stairs again. This time they kept walking through the hallway downstairs and followed the corridor to the left. At the very end of the hallway was a large door. When they passed through it they entered an enormous hangar, in the middle of it a large jet. It was completely white, but on the tail wing there was a red logo. A circle with a T, and three triangles pointing towards the T, in it. The door on the side of the jet was open, and the stairs was down. Next to the stairs into the plane were two men standing guard, they had a digital camouflaged outfit and were both holding an assault rifle. They started walking towards them. Fuck, why did they fall for this extremely obvious trap? Although, Lara came to realise, if they hadn't gone to that seminar, these people would've probably found another way to take Lara and Sam. _Why _did they take them?

The inside of the jet is what you would expect from a private jet. White carpeting, white ceiling and walls. Along the tube of the jet were three groups of two leather beige chairs facing each other with a wooden table in the middle. The girls were forced in the two chairs all the way in the back. The two large men sat in the two chairs closest to them. When they were seated the Asian man walked up to them.

"Would you like to have a drink?" He said smiling. Lara and Sam were both beyond nervous, confused and baffled by the entire situation.

"Please." Lara looked up to him. "Tell us what is going on…"  
The Asian man looked Lara in the eye for what seemed an eternity, but then switched his eyes to Sam.

"Miss Nishimaru. You were wanted pretty badly on Yamatai." The Asian man said.

Sam looked confused, first at the man, then at Lara, then back at the man again. "Uhm, yes…?"  
"Do you know why that was?"  
"Somehow I think you already know that…" Sam replied.

"Please, answer the question."  
"I was related to Himiko the Sun queen. The Solarii wanted to offer my body to the Sun queen because I was related, so the queen would be set free. In return the Solarii were hoping the queen would grant them their freedom."

"Am." The man replied to Sam.

"Sorry?"  
"You ARE related. Present tense."

"Okay…"  
"Your father was born Japanese. That is how it was possible you were related to Himiko, since she was Japanese too."  
"Yes."  
"What's your mother her nationality?"  
"Why?"  
The man sighed. "Answer the question."  
"Portuguese."

"Okay. So you're half Portuguese too. Now tell me, in the year 1500, which country claimed Brazil?"  
Lara her mouth fell open. Sam looked at Lara, puzzled.

"I'll answer that for you." Said the Asian man. "Portugal."


	6. Trinity

**Trinity**

"So what are you saying?!" Sam asked dumbfounded. "What? There's, like, another Sun queen in Brazil? Seriously what the fucking fuck is going on?"  
"I'm sure your friend can answer some of your questions. I hear she's highly informed regarding subjects like these. Though, you haven't given me an answer yet. Would you like something to drink?"  
Sam didn't answer and looked at Lara who was just looking into nothingness.  
The man looked at Lara. "Miss Croft?"  
"I'm fine." She replied without blinking or shifting her eyes. The Asian man walked away.  
"No!" Sam yelled. "Come back here and explain what the fuck you're on about!" She wanted to stand up and chase after him but promptly said down again after the two large men, who sat close by, stood up and started walking towards her.  
She turned to her best friend. "Lara, please tell me what I don't know. What on earth does he mean?!"  
Lara looked at Sam. She was trying to make sense of everything too.  
"The Lost City of Z." Lara said.  
"Ah! Now I understand." Sam said sarcastically and frustrated.  
"I think. I mean I think we're going there. According to the 512 manuscript it's believed to be a hidden, but very large, city in the Amazon rainforest. Legends say it's an ancient city too."  
"The 512 manuscript?" Sam asked intrigued.  
"To shorten a very lengthy story; in 1753 an expedition took place in the Amazon rainforest led by Brazilian explorers. They were seeking the Muribeca mines, allegedly filled with gold and silver. While they did not manage to find the mines, they did discover an abandoned, ancient, enormous city within the rainforest. The 512 manuscript was a document to inform the Brazilian viceroy of their discovery. While many believe the document to be false or wildly inaccurate, it moved the famous British explorer Percy Fawcett to set out on an expedition in search of this lost city. For reasons unknown he called this city, The Lost City Z, or City Z."  
Sam waited for Lara to continue, but she didn't.  
"Well?" She was on the edge of her chair. "Did he find it?"  
"No." Lara continued. "Well, maybe. He never returned."  
"He died?"  
"Probably."  
"How?"  
"No one knows. He went into the Amazon rainforest but never came back. There's a lot of different stories going around regarding the fate of Fawcett."  
Sam leaned back in her chair and covered her face, but then moved her hands again and looked surprised. "That's great and all, but that's a tiny spot in Brazil, I'm sure. How are you so sure that that is where they are taking us?"  
"I said I wasn't sure. I think they are because legends say two centuries before the Brazilian expedition, a Portuguese man was the sole survivor of a shipwreck on the Brazilian coast. Back then the Amazon rainforest was home to a lot of Indian tribes. Even though they were generally very violent to outsiders, they saved this Portuguese man and took him in. His name was Diego Alvarez. Diego lived with the tribe for a very long time and had several children and grandchildren. One of his grandchildren was named Muribeca and was believed to have shamanistic powers. He could bend nature to his will, he could let it rain, and let it stop when needed. He could even move and alter the earth beneath his feet. This is where, legends say, the Muribeca mines came from. I had always dismissed it as just another myth, but since a long half-dead sun queen almost took control of your body, I'm not sure what to say about it anymore."  
Sam mind was blown. "And they think I'm related to this Muribeca because I was related to Himiko and my mother happens to be Portuguese? And then what? Was this Muribeca a Shamanistic King that also needs a body to transfer his power to?"  
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." Lara replied.

Sam had a million other questions but didn't get the chance because she was pulled back to reality when she heard the pilot over the intercom.  
_Prepare for take off.  
_Seconds after the announcement the plane started moving. Sam panicked once again, but Lara just looked out the window, defeated, for now. There was nothing they could do now, there was no way off this plane. They were going to Brazil, whether they wanted to or not.  
Sam grabbed Lara her knee. "We have to do something." she whispered. Lara looked at her. "Sam, there is nothing we can do now."  
"Don't give up so quickly." Sam removed her hand from Lara her knee.  
"What do you mean don't give up so quickly? Who said I gave up already? What do you want me to do now? Kill those gorilla's there and jump out of a moving plane?" Lara said aggravated.  
"I don't know, Lara! You've killed bigger guys!" Sam raised her voice.  
Lara got up. "Okay, sure Sam, let me just save the day on my own." The second she had gotten up, so did the two large gentlemen. Lara started walking towards them.  
"No, wait!" Sam got up too, the two men started walking towards Lara. "No!" She yelled again. "Wait, guys, she will sit back down! Lara, please, I'm sorry!" She grabbed Lara her arm and pulled her back to their seats. Lara sat back down. Sam looked at the two men. "Please, just sit back down, we're fine." And so they did.  
Sam looked back at Lara. "I'm sorry." She said, pouted. "I'm just really scared and I panicked. I don't know what to do."  
"It's okay." Lara said.  
"No, seriously I'm sor-..."  
"It's fine." Now Lara was the one who put a hand on Sam her knee. "I'm scared too. But don't worry." She forced a smile on her face. "We'll get out of this mess. I promise. We'll just have to play along for now."  
The plane reached the airstrip and started getting speed to take off. It didn't matter how many times she flew before, Lara always thought the second the plane came loose from the ground entirely, gave a very off-setting feeling. The current situation made that feeling a whole lot worse. Off they were, on a very very long, and unwanted, flight.

Jonah was speeding on the highway. He didn't care, he had to hurry. He had to hurry to London. He told the girls not to go to that dodgy seminar without him, but he couldn't convince them. Sam, of course, wouldn't listen. They promised to inform him the minute they came back. The seminar was only an hour and at 10:30 PM they still hadn't called back. He had tried both their cell phones all night but both their phones were turned off. It was now more than 12 hours ago and they still had not called. He was driving on the M23 near Burstow, way too fast, when a police car pulled up before him with the sign "_Stop Police." _flashing in red just above its window. Dammit. The police car took the first gas station exit and drove to the parking lot area, Jonah followed. They pulled up and Jonah turned off his engine and rolled down his window. A police officer approached his car window.  
"Good day, sir." The police officer said while leaning on his car door. "Going a bit fast, aren't we?"  
"I'm sorry, Officer, but I am in a real hurry. Could we possibly get this over with quickly?" Jonah reached for his wallet containing his drivers' license.  
"Of course you are. Everyone is in a hurry these days. It can end very badly for you, these situations, you know, if you don't follow what's happening around you." The officer took his drivers' license and went back to his patrol car. It seemed to take forever for him to come back.  
"Here's your fine, sir. I'm sure you know how this works?" The police officer asked. Jonah grabbed the ticket. Weird thing to say, he never received a speeding ticket before in England.  
"Yes, officer, I'll be fine, thank you." Jonah said while taking a quick look at the ticket. He frowned and turned back to the officer. "Officer, I think you've made a mistake. It says here I was going 250 MPH?" It was only at that moment that Jonah recognized the police officer. It was the same man that was in his restaurant the other night, inviting all three of them to the seminar. Jonah his mouth fell open and looked at the man dumbfounded. The man smiled.  
"Oh but, sir." He said smiling. "I'm not the one who made a mistake here." The man reached for Jonah his door handle from the inside through the open window and pulled it, which unlocked the car doors.. That same moment Jonah heard the door at the passenger side open and a person entering his car. He turned his head but was stopped by cold metal pressing against his temple.  
"If you don't want your car to be splattered with pieces of your brain I suggest you close your window and start driving." The strange man that had just entered his car said. Jonah shakily closed his car window. The other man already returned to his patrol car and started driving off. Jonah started his engine and started driving too.  
"Wh-..where..to?" Jonah asked. The cold metal of the handgun still pressing against the side of the head gave an extremely eerily feeling, that reached every inch of his body.  
"Do you know where Luton Airport is?"  
"Y-...yes…"  
"Well then, off we go."

Lara and Sam were well away on their flight. Lara just realised they had stayed the night somewhere when they were drugged, because it was light when they were at the airport. She was hungry and thirsty now. And as if her mind was read, a stewardess came by and offered them their lunch. They had a choice; Ravioli, Serrano ham sandwiches, onion soup or a salade. While Sam went for the ravioli, Lara picked the sandwich.  
"Do you remember those GPS caches I found on Yamatai I told you about?" Lara asked Sam while taking a bite. Sam looked up and frowned while thinking. "Uh, yes I think I do. They contained a location of a message or something?"  
"Yes, they contained coordinates that led to a message, two messages actually, on a document."  
"Yes, so?"  
"I let you read the messages, do you remember what they said?" Lara asked.  
"Something with an Axis operation right?" Sam replied. "The messages dated back from World War II."  
"I remember the first one word by word because it was so out of place."  
"What did it say?" Sam asked. "And what does it have to do with any of this? I'm getting curious, c'mon tell me."  
"Command to Operative STOP Trinity is concerned STOP Acquisition of Star Phenomenon unacceptable STOP Sabotage of Axis operation imperative STOP." Lara took another bite from her sandwich. Sam looked puzzled. "Uhm, what does that even mean."  
"I hadn't had a look at it since we got back, and when I read it on the island I didn't think to much of it, because, well, my mind was occupied with other things. But just now I remembered it again, because of the word Trinity. You remember what that Connor Bennet at Jonah his restaurant said? The TAFDI - Trinity Archaeological Findings and Discovery Institute."  
"Actually that last bit is bullshit, we added that for authenticity." The Asian man had come back. He stood next to the girls with his arms crossed. His appearance wasn't that intimidating per se, it was more the idea that he was mentally insane. Back at the airport in the jail cell Lara already thought he looked familiar, so she took another look at him. With a puzzled look she tried to remember what name belonged to that face.  
"You're a smart girl, Miss Croft." The Asian man continued. "You realised we were on Yamatai before. Do you also realise what the Star Phenomenon is?"  
"I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the power of Himiko." Lara replied.  
"Yes, the power to control nature. The Star Phenomenon is the code word for it. We don't completely understand what it is yet, either. But Nazi's were very close to figuring out the secret. They had to be stopped."  
"So I guess you were successful in that?" Sam asked.  
"Yes, we were."  
"Why did they have to be stopped?"  
"You realise what power Himiko had? She could control the weather, bend nature at her will. Look at the damage it did on a single island. Imagine what it could do on the battlefield in Europe. We didn't want the Nazi's to gain too much power."  
"And how did you stop them?" Lara asked. "And why didn't Trinity take that power for themselves?"  
"We didn't enter the island, we couldn't. So we made the Germans lose the war."  
"Ha, yeah right." Lara scoffed. "What. So you couldn't enter an island but you made the Nazi's lose World War II? I find that hard to believe."  
The Asian man smiled. "Miss Croft, you have a lot to learn about our organisation. It was not hard. Manipulating the already mentally unstable Hitler into thinking he could take on the USSR in their homeland, and then supporting the USSR in key locations and places, was quite easy. Trinity has been around for quite some time, Miss Croft. We contributed to a lot of what's in today's history books, including the fall of some Roman Empire."  
The girls looked doubtful. "You keep on saying _we_." Lara said. "Who actually are you than? Who or what actually is Trinity?"  
The man laughed. "Miss Croft, even if we had just began our journey, I wouldn't have enough time to explain everything. Trinity is a worldwide based organisation for the protection of humankind."  
"That doesn't make any sense. You kidnap people for the protection of humankind?"  
"I would have believed that, after the events on Yamatai, you would stop seeing the world so black and white, Miss Croft."  
"You covered up Yamatai for a reason, didn't you?" Sam asked.  
"Yes, we did. We couldn't enter, study and leave the island successfully. Even after the war ended we had tried for countless of years, but never succeeded. With more pressing issues at hand during the Cold War, we decided to postpone works on Yamatai, because it would be unreachable for anyone, anyway. We did however keep a close eye on it. That's how we found out that you two had managed to clear the way, and we are now able to study what exactly the power of Himiko is, or was. And, yes of course, we do not need the press, so called archaeologists or any tourists visiting the island. Don't worry, Trinity paid the government of Japan for the island. We own it now and can refuse access to anyone."  
"Oh my God." Lara's mouth fell open. "You are Mitsuo Mitani. That's where I remember you from. You're a direct advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan and a member of the House of Representatives!"  
Mitsuo looked at Lara. "I expected you to find out sooner, to be completely honest."  
"My mind was occupied." Lara promptly replied.  
"Yes well, as I said, we are a worldwide organisation. We have ties to every single established government."  
"You're telling us all this because you're going to kill us later anyway, aren't you? When this is all over." Sam asked scared.  
The Asian man laughed once again. "Miss Nishimaru, I can assure you that if we wanted you dead, you'd be dead already."  
"Yeah, but you still need us now. Somehow you think I'm related to someone in this fucking rainforest and expect me to go through what I went through on Yamatai all over again, don't you? Well fuck you! Fuck you and your ridiculous organisation. I'm not going to, I'd rather die. So go ahead and shoot me, asshole."  
"I'm sure I'll be able to convince you when we hit the ground." He started walking away again. "Prepare ladies, we're landing in about 10 minutes."

Lara looked outside the window. She saw a lot of fields and meadows, divided by dirt roads. Further up she saw a small town. Only the main roads in that town were asphalt, the rest were dirt roads as well. And if she pinched her eyes and looked even farther up ahead so could see the tree line. The tree line of a forest that stretched as far as they could see, despite the height they were flying at. The Amazon rainforest. She didn't see any airport nearby.

_This is your captain speaking, I hope you had a pleasant flight, we'll be landing in about 5 minutes. Please strap yourself in, we'll be having a somewhat bumpy landing._

The girls fastened their seatbelts, and so did everyone else. The plane made a left turn just when it reached the town. They were flying so low right now that Lara could see the people go on with their daily lives in the small town. She looked up front through the window and saw they were approaching a large and far stretching dirt road. The captain wasn't exaggerating when he said this'll be a bumpy landing. When the plane was just a few feet of the ground, Lara realised the only reason they could land here is that there were no trees on the fields adjacent, the wings of the plane stretched over the dirt road they were landing on. The landing _was _bumpy, Lara felt, when they finally hit the ground. She flexed her muscles and Sam did the same. The plane was shaking heavily and Lara thought it might actually fall apart. She closed her eyes, but all was good and after a few seconds the plane came to a halt. Lara started focusing again, and reawakened her senses. Now that they've hit the ground they should seek any chance of an escape. Sam was right, they can't go through what they did on Yamatai once again.

When Jonah reached the airport he wasn't guided through the main entrance but had to take a left before the gates. After about a minute drive they came to a gate with a security guard holding an assault rifle. Jonah drove up, expecting the man next to him to temporarily hide his gun, and he should use that moment to escape. But the man didn't hide his gun, they drove up to the security guard who looked inside. He looked at the mysterious man holding Jonah at gunpoint, nodded and opened the gate barrier.

"Go on." The man said, and Jonah stepped on the gas again. What the hell was going on here? Did Lara and Sam get taken by the same man? He was guided to a large empty hangar and Jonah drove inside, as instructed. When he parked his car at the side he was commanded to step outside, and he did.

"Turn around and walk to that little office over there." Now that Jonah got a look at the man he could see that it was a man of about the same height of Jonah. He had short black hair and a small beard. He seemed to work out quite a bit, but still had a somewhat slender posture. He was wearing a leather jacket, with a black t-shirt and black jeans. He had a deep scar on his left cheek. He pointed to a little building inside the hangar on the side with his free hand, while still pointing his gun at Jonah. When he reached the little structure, he noticed it was empty except for one chair in the middle, and one cupboard against the wall. The man pointed at the chair and told him to sit down on it. When Jonah said down the man walked towards the cupboard, opened it and got out another gun. He proceeded to hand that gun to Jonah, who accepted it open mouthed.  
"Don't get any ideas, it's not loaded." The man said. "Now hold it against your own head."  
"What?" Jonah asked, dumbfounded. "No, I'm not going to do that." Jonah served in the New Zealand army, so he knew his way around guns, which also helped on Yamatai. He noticed this was a Walther P99. He wanted to unload the magazine to check if it was indeed not loaded but he didn't get a chance. The man pointed his gun at Jonah his right foot, his toes specifically, and pulled the trigger. The bullet went right through his big toe and completely pulverized it. The pain was excruciating, Jonah had been shot before, but only a flesh wound. Never had he experienced such pain as he did now. He dropped the gun he was holding, screamed like he never did before and grabbed his right foot. He fell of the chair on his side. He took a look at his foot, he was wearing sandals with socks. The blood was gushing out where most of his big toe used to be. He moaned and yelled, but the man walked up to him, pulled him up effortless, despite Jonah his weight, and put him back on his chair. Jonah kept on moaning. His face was red of the adrenaline, his screaming and the pain. The man grabbed the gun from the floor and put it in Jonah his hand again. He then leaned forward and positioned his head near Jonah his ear.  
"If you don't listen to me…" The man whispered eerily while he placed his gun on Jonah his right knee cap. "I'm going to work my way up. From your knee." He then slid his gun over his upper leg towards Jonah his crotch. "To your man parts." He slid his gun back down over his left leg, to his left knee cap. "Back down the other leg. And I'll keep going until you listen. Is that clear, you fucking hippie?"  
"Holy sssshit." Jonah moaned. "P-Please, I ne..I need help! Please man, we hav..have to stop this bleeding..Fuck! God dammit this hurts!"  
"Do as I say and we'll have a look at your foot." The man stepped backwards again. Jonah looked at him and lifted the gun, his hand was shaking severely. He placed the gun at his temple. A tear rolled down his face.  
"Good, hold it like that. Don't move or make a sound." The main said. Jonah bit his lip to try and keep himself from screaming. The man got out his smartphone and proceeded to make a picture of Jonah, after he fiddled with his phone for a few seconds.  
"See, that wasn't so hard." He said while walking towards the door. "I'll see if we have something for your foot." The man laughed.


	7. On The Edge

**On The Edge**

Lara stepped down the stairs coming out of the plane, just after Sam. Behind Lara came the two big fella's. They stepped out on the dirt road. Directly in front of them stretched large empty fields, only some of them had something growing on it. It was warm, _really warm. _Only now Lara realised she was still wearing this stupid buttoned shirt, and God, these All Stars. How would they expect her to walk th-...Sam! Lara looked at her friend. Even though she had taken off her high heels, she was still wearing her black dress. It actually looked hilarious, a black dress here in this weather, and environment, and if it wasn't for this fucked up situation, Lara would've laughed. Sam saw Lara looking at her clothing.  
"Yeah…" Sam looked at her own dress, then back up at Lara again and raised her eyebrows. "I know."  
Mitsuo had now stepped outside the plane as well and put on his sunglasses. Mitsuo always seemed to have a confident look in his face. It looked like he had been in these kind of situations before, so many times, even, that he seemed to get bored with this one. Lara realised Mitsuo was probably a high-up in this Trinity organisation of theirs. It started to dawn on her how big this actually was. Mitsuo Mitani was the direct advisor to the Japanese PM, and a member of the House of Representatives of the Japanese government. Even if this whole Trinity thing was a fraud, which didn't seem likely anymore at this point, the fact that he was involved in shady business like this meant there was something really serious going on. That didn't just mean that they were dangerous people, but also that, if Sam and Lara would be able to escape, they'd probably find them again.  
"Welcome to Brazil, ladies. Our transport will be here shortly." He said.  
"To where?" Lara asked.  
"To the town nearby. There we'll relay all information you need and have the necessary equipment ready."  
"So you're really sending us into the Amazon?"  
"Yes."  
"And who says we'll listen?" Sam stepped in. "Who says we'll do whatever you want? Like I said, I'd rather die than go through that hell again."  
"When we reach the safe house I'm sure you'll change your mind." Mitsuo answered, remaining calm, and creepily friendly, as always. Lara was getting scared as to what that really meant.  
They saw two cars coming over the dirt road, from the direction the plane came from. A large dust cloud formed behind the cars as they were getting closer. After a minute two black Range Rovers reached the plane. British engineering on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, mid Brazil. Huh. One of the two larger men ordered the two girls to enter one of black cars. Lara and Sam were accompanied by one of the two men, while Mitsuo and the other large man entered the other car. They made a u-turn and started heading where they came from. Lara looked outside. The landscape was quite odd to say the least. While most of the fields and roads looked extremely dry and filled with sand, some parts of the landscape was filled with patches of dark green, healthy looking, large trees. They really were on the edge of entering the rainforest. Lara was thinking about an escape plan all the time, but all she could do is just keep her focus up and wait for any possibilities of taking those two large gorillas down. Once those two were down, they could take out Mitsuo, that didn't look to hard. Although, Lara had learned for experience, never underestimate your opponents.  
After about a 5 minute drive they entered the town over which they had just passed by plane. The road they were driving on was made of asphalt when they entered the town, but if you were to turn to any side street you'd be on a dirt road again. The houses look better than Lara expected. While some of the houses looked like they had been decaying for decades, most of the structures in the town looked very well maintained. Almost all of them had been painted a different colour, not too bright, but they were all properly distinctive. Not one of them had patterns or images painted on it, just one colour. A beige building, then a baby blue building, then a light red building. Maybe they used to be brighter colours but had faded due to the sun here. It actually looked like a quite nice town. It looked cozier than London, anyway. But maybe that's because Lara hadn't really left the Manor that much in the last few months. They were driving over the main road which was a both way road, divided by a patch of grass stretching down along the road with large trees growing on it. Some trees had grown so large that they were casting a shadow, stretching from one side of the road to the other. On both sidewalks, adjacent to the mainroad, were people walking, running, talking and just going on with their day. The terrain of the town was partly covered in sand dust, creating a little sand airwave whenever a gust would occur. This made most cars rather dirty, and while most cars were very old, and used, cars, no one batted an eye at the two large black cars passing by. After another two minutes of driving through the town they passed a gas station and made a right turn. The asphalt made place for a dirt road, and while they were in large SUV's, you couldn't ignore the large bumps, holes and ditches in the road. Did everyone in this village have back problems? On each side of the dirt road were houses that they passed. After they passed about 10 houses they pulled over to the left and stopped in front of one of them. It was a roofpoint house with a red-ish roof and white walls and the porch was made of wood. There were a few windows, but they were covered with wooden planks which were nailed together. The front yard up until the porch was covered with very thin grass, you could see the dirt on most spots. The Range Rovers were parked next to each other on the front yard.  
"Get out." Said the large man in between Sam and Lara. They both opened their doors and stepped out. Mitsuo and the other large man had already gotten out and had reached the front door.  
"Move." The man said while pushing Lara in her back. The girls started walking.  
"You don't say a lot, do you?" Lara said agitated. "Sentences with more than three words confuse you?"  
The man laid his hand on Lara her shoulder and patted it. "Keep walking, kid, or I'll dislocate your shoulder before you can yell for your mommy."  
"I don't have a mom, so tough luck." Lara replied.  
The man stopped patting and grabbed her shoulder tighter. "Wanna bet you'll still scream for her?"

They entered the house. The floor was made of wood. In the back on the left side was a wooden stairs up. The rest of the room was completely empty, except for one large table of about 20 feet long and about 3 feet wide. A black cloth was covering it, but by the shape you could see there were a lot of items placed on it. Four men were standing behind the table, facing towards the door they had just entered through. All four were dressed in guerrilla outfits. Cargo camouflage pants with a lot of pockets. A handgun, a machete, two pouches and 2 grenades were strapped to their belts. Their top was camouflaged as well, and they were wearing a vest over it. On the vest were even more, filled, pockets, probably magazines for the assault rifles they were all holding. The FN SCAR, made for the United States Special Operations Command, SOCOM. These were the heavy variant with the shorter barrel for close quarter combat. Issued with 7.62x51MM NATO rounds, these assault rifles were not only extremely hard to come by, but also one of the top notch assault rifles on today's market. The gun hadn't even entered official service yet. Their faces were completely covered with a black bandanna. Portrayed on their masks was a large skeletal face with an enormous grin. These men were most probably hired mercenaries who would never, regardless of the job, show their faces to anyone except the employer. Mitsuo was standing on the left side of the table and grabbed the end of the cloth covering the table. He lifted it and walked all the way to the right side of the table to remove the cloth. On the table were, as suspected, a large quantity of items. Starting from the left there were clothes, boots, coats, backpacks, maps, machetes, axes, GPS devices, compass, walkie talkies, bug spray, toiletries, packed food and drinks, including water bottles, a water filter, first aid kits, flashlights, binoculars, pretty much anything you needed to survive the forest for a very, very long. How long did they expect the girls to stay in the Amazon? Fuck, this is getting more ridiculous by the minute. Lara looked at Sam who looked back at her. She saw the fear in Sam her eyes. It was as if Sam was crying for Lara to save the day and get them out of there. Just kill everyone and leave, just as she did on Yamatai. But she couldn't, not yet anyway.  
"Okay, ladies." Mitsuo broke the silence. "Since you will be travelling through the rain forest for quite some time, we have made the appropriate equipment available for you, as you can see. While there are axes and machetes available for you, please realise that these are for environmental use only, not as weapons. These four gentlemen will accompany you on your journey. While their second job is the make sure you do not part from your mission, they are primarily here to provide protection for you."  
"So, the reason they are carrying assault rifles is for those pesky mosquitoes in the rain forest?" Lara said sarcastically.  
"Yes, Miss Croft, just as much as your guns on Yamatai kept the seagulls off your back." Mitsuo replied, being sarcastically on his turn.  
Mitsuo reached for one of the maps and spread it open in front of them after moving some clothing aside. He laid a finger on the map pointing to a small village on the edge of the eastern side of the Amazon, Brazil.  
"Querência." Mitsuo said. "That is where we are now. To the west of here the Amazon starts." He traced his finger along the map. "We will be taking the cars as far west as we can." His finger stopped at the very edge of the green blur that covered most of the map. "From there you will have to continue on foot. It will be about 30 miles to your destination." He slide his finger further west and stopped at a small settlement near a large lake. He then folded the map again.  
"And what do we do there?" Lara asked. She realised Sam had been silent since they had entered the cars. Maybe the fear was getting too much for her now.  
"You will reach a small abandoned settlement there, just next to the lake. From here you will have to move a few miles south."  
"A few miles south? Where exactly?" Sam finally talked again.  
"We don't know."  
"You don't know?"  
"No." Mitsuo looked Sam directly in her eyes. "There is supposed to be a large hidden city around that spot, the one your friend talked about in the plane. However, since every single explorer we've sent there hasn't returned, we cannot say for sure."  
"What about satellite images?" Lara asked.  
"Distorted around that large area. If you look at those images you will only see large areas of trees, nothing else. Yet, we know for a fact that there are several large open spots throughout that area, not reflected on satellite images. This is the same with Yamatai, you will not be able to find the island on satellite images." Lara knew this to be true, she had tried to look up Yamatai on Google but was unable to.  
Sam sighed, covered her face in her hands and hung her head down.  
"Okay, let's say we actually do that for you. And let's say that we actually reach this abandoned city of yours, then what?" Lara asked. "I mean, this is just insane. You kidnap us, drag us across continents and then expect us to find you a long lost city in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. This is...this is just mindblowingly insane. And why us? You said yourself you've sent in many men, but none of them have returned. Who says we will be able to help you? And why not just sent out an entire military squadron?" Lara looked at the 4 men. "You seem to have the money and contacts for it. You really need to start explaining yourself."  
Mitsuo looked at Lara and inhaled deeply.  
"We've spoken about Yamatai on the plane. I've told you that we weren't able to access that island, so we ceased operations and retreated to merely monitoring it. We did that in several ways. Not only did we place ships around the island, outside the reach of Himiko, we also monitored the island through our satellites."  
"Satellite imagery doesn't work. I know that, and you've said it yourself as well." Lara replied.  
"Correct, however, we were able to detect an abnormality in the Earth's magnetic field in that region. We measured the abnormality when we first started monitoring that area, way before the Germans found out about it. This is how we found out where Yamatai was, not because its name was written on it, but because we explored the abnormality in that region and found the island."  
Lara and Sam started to get intrigued.  
"Now." Mitsuo continued. "Listen carefully, you want to know how and what, I will only tell once. Do you remember Hoshi?"  
"Yes! That was the priestess destined for the ritual to pass on Himiko's soul. I read parts of her diary I found on Yamatai. She realised what evil the queen was and killed herself." Lara said.  
"That is correct." Mitsuo answered. "Now, do you also remember why Himiko was still bound to these earthly planes and caused severe storms all over and around the island in anger?"  
"Because she was trapped in a decaying body." Sam said. "Because of the ritual that failed due to Hoshi killing herself, right?"  
"Also correct." Mitsuo turned to Sam. "You're both well informed, which is, of course, no surprise. After Hoshi killed herself, the ritual was ruined and the queen was trapped in a decaying body. She started raging storms all over the island, out of anger, and quickly killed off most of her citizens. The remaining inhabitants tried to escape, but, as you know, that wasn't so easy. When all of her citizens either died or fled, she laid dormant, only to wreak havoc on ships or planes coming remotely close to the island. Until the Nazi's arrived. Somehow, and we still don't know how, they came to know of the island and entered it after a lot of failed attempts. They knew of the power Himiko possessed before entering the island, or they would've never sent so many men out to die. When they finally took control over the island, and I have to say I am still embarassed the Nazi's managed to do so before us, they started researching Himiko and the ritual. Soon they found out about the meaning of the ritual and tried to recreate it. Since we were still monitoring the island, this was the moment we realised they were close and had to be stopped, we started making plans for the downfall of the Third Reich. But, before we could do that, I can tell you it took some planning, the Nazi's recreated the ritual by offering one of their female officers to Himiko. The ritual failed because after a previous failed ritual, only a direct descendant of the queen could be used to complete the ritual. Now to get back to the Earth's magnetic field, we monitored an enormous abnormality, we had never seen such a huge disturbance, during the Nazi's attempt to recreate the ritual. It didn't matter, though, as the Nazi's kept on researching potential solutions, we managed to give the USSR the upper hand and they quickly left the island after they were defeated."  
The girls were processing all the information as quickly as they could. That Connor was right, they did have information about Yamatai not known to the girls yet…  
"When we measured that enormous disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field, we started looking for other places on Earth which had the same abnormality as that of Yamatai."  
"And that's where you want us to go." Lara said.  
"Yes. Kuhikugu in the Amazon rainforest, the archaeological region is called. Not only did we measure the same abnormality as Yamatai, we also went through the logs of our monitoring satellites and found that enormous disturbance during the failed ritual, also took place in Kuhikugu at the exact same time. This led us to explore that specific region and found out that it was as impossible to enter as Yamatai. Not only did our men not return, we had two helicopters crash after trying to fly over due to weather circumstances. We've thrown a lot of resources into reaching this place, but, until now hopefully, to no avail. After the Nazi's left Yamatai we tried to enter the island again, but Himiko seemed to have grown stronger and angrier and we just weren't able to. We once again ceased trying and focused, as I said before, on the matters at hand; the Cold War. Trinity's interest in the island was no longer a priority, until Mathias showed up. When the ritual was started once again by Mathias, and interrupted by Miss Croft, we measured the same disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field, on both Yamatai and in Kuhikugu."  
"Wow." Lara closed her eyes, this was a lot of information. She opened her eyes again.  
"We, of course, started researching Kuhikugu and this Lost City of Z." Mitsuo continued. "And found out about Muribeca. As you know he is a descendant of Diego Alvarez. That Diego Alvarez happened to have a Japanese wife. This made us believe that Miss Nishimura is not only a descendant of Himiko, but also of Muribeca. Obviously, we aren't a 100% sure, and can't be, but we're confident enough to give it a shot. This is why we are sending you, Miss Nishimura, since you are probably a descendant, you might be able to gain access to this site. We brought Miss Croft along for her expertise and the fact you seem to heavily rely on her."  
The girls just stared at him, absolutely and completely dumbfounded.  
"So…" Lara broke the silence. "You want us to go there and then what? Let's say this Muribeca person is still alive, you want Sam to just go up to him and say, 'Hey I'm your long lost granddaughter?' What's the purpose of us going there?"  
"We are studying the ritual site on Yamatai as we speak, we are looking for the key to this phenomenon. Trinity has a large interest in this phenomenon, and thus we are looking to explore the site that has the same magnetic signature as Yamatai. We believe it will help us truly unravel the mystery. We want you two go there and help us unravel it. Make contact with whoever and whatever is there."  
"What can you tell us about the site? Any inhabitants? Anything we need to look out for?" Lara asked.  
"Nothing."  
"What?"  
"We can't tell you anything, we have no intel whatsoever on this location."  
"Fuck me." Sam said. "Fucking fuck this, I'm not going, _we're _not going. Fuck you and fuck everything about this."  
"I understand how you feel." Mitsuo said, remaining calm as always. "But, unfortunately, you not going is not an option."  
"Oh yeah? What are you going to do? Shoot me? Go the fuck ahead, I'm not going." Sam provokingly said.  
"No, Miss Nishimura, shooting you would do us no good. We can and will, however, shoot your friend."  
"What? Lara? If you shoot her I will most certainly not go!" Sam yelled. She was getting angrier.  
"We will not start with Miss Croft. However, I can assure you that Mister Maiava will not be having too much of a good time if you don't decide to cooperate with us."  
"JONAH?!" Lara and Sam yelled both.  
Mitsuo reached for his pocket and got out his smartphone. He clicked the screen a few times and then pointed the screen towards the girls. The screen showed a picture of Jonah sitting in a chair, with a tear rolling down his face and holding a P99 to the side of his head. His right foot was bleeding, and a little pool of blood had already formed at his feet.  
"You motherfucking bastard!" Sam yelled and tried to smash the phone out of Mitsuo his hand, but Mitsuo his reflexes were too quick and he already retracted his arm. Sam made a few steps forward and wanted to lunge at him, but was stopped by one of the large men, the black one. Sam struggled and yelled, the man forced Sam her arms behind her back and gave a quick kick behind her knee which forced her to her knees. Lara jumped in to aid her friend in need. She formed a fist and wanted to hit the man, who held her friend down, in his lower rib cage with her knuckles. She put all her force behind it, so much that she closed her eyes while flexing her muscles. She felt her fist made impact and quickly opened her eyes to plan her next move, but quickly realised her fist had not hit the black man his ribs but the hand of the other large man, he had intervened. He now grabbed Lara her fist, his hand was about three times as big as her own hand. While Lara her hand was still fisted, he pressed on her middle finger, forcing it towards her own hand. The pain immediately reached throughout her entire arm. It hurt so much she reached for his hand, which was holding hers, with her other hand. Unfortunately, the man also promptly grabbed Lara her other hand and twisted it. Mitsuo had not even been paying attention, and was tapping away at his phone. The man pushed harder on Lara her middle finger, and twister her other hand and arm even further.  
"Knees. Know." The man said.  
"Lara!" Sam yelled and tried to get up, but the grip of the black large man was too strong.  
"Fuck! Let go!" Lara yelled. The man responded by increasing the grip on her finger, and twisting her arm even further. She was amazed her finger and arm hadn't broken yet. The pain was getting too much and she got on her knees. The man held both her arms still up, stepped to the side of Lara, lifted his right leg and swung it at Lara her stomach so hard she couldn't breathe anymore on impact. The man let go of her arms and she immediately fell to the floor, holding her stomach and gasping for air. The man stepped in front of Lara and kicked her in her stomach again. And again. And again.  
"STOP!" Sam yelled, still unable to get up. The man was still kicking Lara.  
"I am one tap on my screen away from telling my colleague to make sure Mister Maiava never walks again. I can inform you my colleague will do so by putting a bullet in both his knee caps. What's it going to be Miss Nishimura?" Mitsuo said calmly.  
"Stop! Please! I'll go! I'll do anything you want, please stop! Don't hurt Jonah, and leave Lara alone! Please." Sam started crying. "Please…"  
The man stopped kicking Lara and Mitsuo put his phone in his jacket.  
"Wise decision, Miss Nishimura." He said. Sam still had tears rolling down her face while she looked at her friend. Lara was on the floor gasping for air, moaning from the pain. Mitsuo looked at the man holding down Sam. "I'll be outside. Get them ready." And he walked out the door. After about 5 minutes of gasping Lara managed to get up on her knees. Her stomach hurt bad, and she was grateful he didn't kick in her ribs as they would've been bruised for sure, if not broken. Lara was actually kind of intrigued by Mitsuo his story and wanted to find out more about this Muribeca and his shamanistic powers. However, this little incident reminded her in which situation she managed to get herself, and Sam, in to.  
"Lara, are you okay?" Sam asked sobbing. Lara was resting on her hands which she placed on the floor in front of her, while she was on her knees.  
"I will be." Lara said softly. "Give me a minute." The four mercenaries had not moved a muscle since they stepped in. After another 5 minutes Lara was able to stand up again, although the pain in her stomach region had not passed. The man holding down Sam let her go.  
"Get changed. Both of you" He commanded while pointing at the clothes on the left side of the table. Both the girls grabbed the clothing on the table. It consisted of long cargo pants with enough pockets and long sleeved shirts, not too tight.  
"Where can we change?" Sam asked while holding the clothes she needed.  
"Right here is fine." The black large man laughed.

Lara was now wearing camouflaged cargo pants with pockets, which she filled with several items from the table. On top of that a black long sleeved shirt and large waterproof boots. Sam was wearing the same pants but beige and also a black long sleeved shirt and large waterproof boots. Both were carrying a backpack on their back filled with items from the table, stuff they needed to survive, wherever they were going. Both of them had a machete and small axe strapped to their belts. They stepped outside and met Mitsuo again who just got off the phone. The two large men followed them.  
"Ladies." Mitsuo said. "This is where we part ways, for now. We will be in contact through the phone that one of my four colleagues is holding, when needed, for how long that's still possible. These four men know about the situation and what their, and your, mission is. Make contact with whatever is there, and we'll pull you out once we know what we're dealing with."  
"And after that?" Sam asked. Her tears were dried up.  
Mitsuo smiled. "We'll go from there. Oh and just a note for the both of you." The four mercenaries stepped outside, still holding their assault rifles, and walked towards the Range Rovers, and stepped in, two in each. "Specially you, Miss Croft, I know you've killed several delusional, nearly starved to death, men on Yamatai. But I want to stress that these four gentlemen are highly trained, ex-US military forces, who have been going on life threatening missions since before you were born. And if that doesn't convince you to not do anything stupid, I can assure you that we _will _kill your friend back in London if you stop cooperating. Now off you go." And he pointed to the cars. "Good luck." Sam and Lara walked towards the car in the back. As soon as they got in they took off, with high speed, leaving a dust cloud behind them. The girls looked at each other. There was no way out now, they were going. They were going on a forced adventure, as much as you can call this as adventure, through the Amazon rainforest looking for a hidden city that _might _exist which _might _contain another ancestor of Sam. Insane? Insane doesn't even begin describing it.


	8. The Forest

**The forest**

Footsteps. Footsteps vaguely echoing in the distance accompanied with mumbling. The man had given a pill to Jonah to relief some of the pain he was experiencing. It was making him drowsy and he had passed out. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was laying on the concrete floor of the same room he was in when the man had shot him. The P99 was taken away from him and the chair was gone. He tried to stand up but his muscles opposed to that idea. Instead he tried to sit up, in which he succeeded. He pulled up his right knee and took a look at his right foot. Extremely painful, but it had stopped bleeding as it was bandaged, probably by the same man who shot him. The footsteps echoing through the hangar were getting closer, along with the mumbling which now started to formulate into an understandable conversation. They were talking about last night's Manchester United football game. Jonah had to get out of here, but in a matter of seconds those men would reach the room Jonah was in. He tried standing up again. Although he managed to get up and keep his balance, the drowsiness and the pain in his foot made walking very difficult. He hopped to the cupboard, the one where the man had taken out the P99, and opened it. The handgun was put back inside, and Jonah swiftly took it out. Still no bullets in the magazine. Not surprising, but he was still disappointed. He heard the voices mere feet away and quickly put the gun in his boxer shorts, closed the cupboard again, and hopped back to the middle of the room. Just as Jonah fell to his knees the door opened and three men entered the room. One of them was the same man who had shot him, he was accompanied by two men. They were bald and were wearing sunglasses, and they both wore black coats.  
"Get up." The man with the beard said. All three men entered the room, but stood a foot away from the door opening. "We're going for a little trip." The two bald men immediately walked towards Jonah, both of them picked up one of his arms and put it around their necks and lifted Jonah up. They proceeded to walk towards the door. Jonah shrugged them off by removing his arms.  
"I can walk myself, bastards." He flinched when his weight was once again supported by his own feet. The man with the beard laughed.  
"Fine. But if you don't keep up I'll shoot you in the face. That clear, tough guy?" He said.  
"Whatever you say." Jonah mumbled. The man with the beard turned around and walked outside the door, followed by the other two. Jonah started walking, slowly, towards the door which was being held open by one of the men with sunglasses. He walked through and started walking in the direction of the other two men. They were walking across the hanger towards the exit. Since the hangar wasn't closed off, Jonah could see it was dark outside. Just as the man who held the door open passed Jonah to join his comrades, Jonah glanced at his belt. A handgun. A Glock 17 to be precise. It was strapped in a holster so it wouldn't be easy to grab. There might be another way, though. A Glock 17 uses 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition. The same as the P99 Jonah was now holding eerily close to his manly parts, which were threatened to be mutilated not so long ago. _Ugh, stop thinking about it._ Maybe the man had an extra magazine in one of his pockets.  
Jonah moaned as he fell to the floor, and rolled over on his back.  
"God dammit." The three men turned around. "Pick the fatty up, will ya?" The man with the beard said, annoyed. "Jesus Christ, fucking baby." The two men in the front kept walking while one walked back to Jonah to help him up.  
"Not so tough as we thought, are we now?" He reached down and grabbed Jonah his arm and tried to pull him up. Jonah used his other arm to stealthily reach for the back pockets of the man his pants, and stroked lightly across them. Nothing. Shit.  
"Jesus, mate. C'mon, get up." The man said, as he pulled again. As Jonah retracted his hand again he stroked over the man his pockets on the side of pants. Nothing either. He used his right arm to embrace the man to stand up. He hopped with the support of the man while his right arm was embraced around the middle of him. It wasn't easy but he managed to reach the man his right coat pocket. Something large and solid was inside. Oh, please, please let it be. They got outside the hangar and took a left turn. They were walking towards a white plane. The stairs to get inside the plane was already lowered. While Jonah was hopping alongside the man, he managed to slide his hand in his right pocket. The object inside felt long, and cold, metal. _Yes._ He slowly retracted his hand and slid the magazine out.  
"Ouch." Jonah said as he retracted his right arm, quickly slid the magazine inside his pocket and reached for his right foot.  
"Jesus fucking Christ, mate. Do you want me to mess up your other foot, as well? Keep walking!" The man said.  
"Sorry." Jonah said.  
They reached the plane, climbed the stairway and got inside. The inside of the plane was fancy, but simple. The floor and ceiling were of a mixture between white and beige colour, while the chairs were brown. There were 16 chairs, 8 on each side, two next to each other on both sides. The man with the beard walked to the cockpit and closed the door behind him. The two men with the sunglasses sat in the front row on the left, and told Jonah to do the same, but on the other side.  
"Where's the bathroom?" Jonah asked.  
"Nowhere, sit down."  
"Look, I don't know where we're going, but if you want the plane to smell extremely foul during the flight, that's your choice."  
The two men looked at him.  
"Please." Jonah continued. "My stomach hurts a lot."  
"What are you? Twelve? Fuck." One of them stood up and walked forward and opened a door to the left just before the door towards the cockpit.  
"You have one minute." Said the man while holding the door open.  
Jonah stepped inside the small bathroom. "Not sure if I can make one minute."  
"One fucking minute." The man said, as he slammed the door shut.  
Jonah locked the door, sat down and quickly got to work. He got out the magazine from his pocket. The magazine wouldn't fit inside the P99, as it was a Glock 17 magazine. He would have to manually extract the bullets from the magazine, and then insert them in the magazine of the P99. Three men, three bullets? No, what if he missed? Six bullets. Two for each. But what if there were more men in the cockpit? Fuck. No, he didn't have time for more than six bullets. He wiggled the bullet on the top of the magazine and tried to slide it out. _Come on, come on._ He managed to slide the first bullet out of the magazine and held it in his hand. On to the second one, he grumbled a bit, his fingers were too big for this work, fuck. Okay, second one out. Onto the third. The third one wouldn't budge. _Fuck, c'mon!  
_"C'mon, c'mon." Jonah realized he whispered out loud.  
"The minute's over! Get the fuck out of there." The man said, outside.  
Finally, the third bullet got out. He wanted to place it in his hand with the other bullets. A large slam on the door scared Jonah and caused him to drop all three bullets. The clattering of the bullets hitting the floor sounded hard enough to be heard outside of the bathroom.  
"Hey! What the hell is going on in there?! What are you doing?!" The man said. He started slamming on the door hard. _Shit._ Jonah put the Glock 17 magazine on the floor and reached for the P99 in his underwear, quickly removed the magazine and started inserting the bullets. The slamming on the door changed into kicking and the door started to give in.  
"Get the fuck out of there, right now, or I'll shoot your brains out!"  
"In a minute!" Jonah screamed. Luckily inserting bullets in a magazine was a lot easier than extracting them. Jonah loaded all three bullets in the P99 magazine and loaded it into the gun. One of the two hinges of the door gave in from the kicking. Jonah stood up and chambered the first bullet. He pointed the gun forward and pulled the hammer. The door swung open and fell sideways as the second hinge gave way. The man had pulled his gun, but wasn't pointing it towards Jonah, he was holding it upwards. He had taken off his sunglasses. For a brief second the man looked surprised in Jonah his eyes. Disbelief. It gave Jonah the edge. The bullet went right through the man his skull which left blood splatters on the wall behind him. The man his head was swung backwards and he was slammed against the wall, before he slid down and died on the floor. The empty shell fell on the ground next to Jonah his feet, as a confirmation that the bullet that had just been fired, indeed came from Jonah his gun. Powered by the previous shot, the mechanism inside the gun had already loaded the next cartridge in the chamber. Jonah quickly stepped forward and aimed his gun to the right. The other man, which had also removed his sunglasses, did not have enough time to react. Jonah pointed the gun at the man and pulled the trigger again. The bullet hit the man in his heart, his muscles flexed all at once on impact. His eyes rolled back and he quickly succumbed. Another empty shell hit the floor. Jonah turned 180 degrees and pointed his gun towards the door to the cockpit. That door immediately flew open. The man with the beard had pulled his gun and aimed it at Jonah. Jonah, in his turn, pointed the gun at the man his head. The man with the beard was faster, but reckless, he pulled the trigger a second before Jonah and hit him in his left arm. Flesh wound. Jonah his body was pumped with adrenaline so he barely flinched. When he pulled the trigger for the third time the bullet pierced the targets throat. The third, and last, empty shell. The man with the beard dropped his gun and reached for his throat, and took two steps back. He fell backwards against the control panels of the plane. Jonah looked at the man as he gargled for a few seconds before he choked to death in his own blood. Jonah kept his gun pointed at the cockpit, expecting another person to come out. He didn't have anymore bullets in his gun.  
"Please don't shoot me!" He heard a man scream from the cockpit. "Please!"  
"Get out the cockpit! Now!" Jonah screamed at the top of his lungs.  
A man, dressed in a pilot outfit, stepped outside.  
"Hands in the fucking air!" Jonah screamed as he pointed to gun at the pilot his face.  
"Please, don't shoot me! Please, I am unarmed, I am just the pilot." He put his hands in the air. Jonah was breathing fast. Adrenaline rushing through his body.  
"Who do you work for?" Jonah asked, still louder than normal. "Do you have a mobile phone?" Jonah continued.  
"No, I don't! I'm sorry!"  
"I need to call the police, where's the nearest phone?!" Jonah asked agitated.  
"Please, Sir." The pilot said stammering. "You want to save your friends, right?"  
Jonah his eyes widened. "What the FUCK do you know about my friends?! Who the fuck are you people?!" Jonah stepped forward and placed the gun on the pilot his forehead. "SPEAK!"  
"Sir, I beg you. Please, listen. If you want to save your friends it would be in your absolute best interest not to call the police. Please allow me to explain…"

Lara was thinking. 30 miles to their destination. The average walking speed is 3.1 miles per hour so that would mean they'd reach it in slightly less than 10 hours. However, they would have to walk through the Amazon rain forest instead of flat terrain, so this would probably double their travel time, _at least._ 20 hours, still within one day, but they couldn't walk for 20 hours straight. Lara suspected they would probably manage to cross 30 miles in two days, or maybe she was just being optimistic.  
They had been driving for about half an hour with the cars until they reached a point where the cars were unable to continue. The tree line loomed before them as if it was the entrance the an enormous green fortress. No more signs of roads nearby, no more houses, no more cars or people, just Lara, Sam, four heavily armed mercenaries and the rain forest, which spanned across countries. The tree trunks were thick and high. Dirt had taken the place of the dusty roads. Leaves and branches crisped beneath their feet as they had moved past the treeline and into the forest. Birds were squeaking. It was a clear and sunny day, what a surprise, and the sun could still penetrate the tree tops. Lara had traveled to rain forests before, but not the Amazon. The humidity was worse than she expected, it made her skin moist instantly, and they were only at the edge of the forest. Despite everything, though, the sight was amazing. If only they had visited here under better circumstances.

Two hours in and none of the four men had spoken a word yet. They moved through the forest agile, trained and professional. Not once did they remove either of their hands from the guns they were holding to support themselves. While Lara often looked at her compass to check their direction, the four mercenaries knew exactly which way to go. Lara and Sam were walking next to each other while the four men formed a square around them. For protection or were they afraid they'd run away? Lara expected Sam to be a bit more jumpy and hysterical of the bugs and critters in the forest, but the occasional spiderweb and bug on the shoulder were casually shrugged off. Maybe she was more afraid of the large guns. Yeah, probably the guns. Lara checked for bloodsuckers and the likes frequently, and told Sam to do the same. Luckily they were wearing long sleeved clothing. The deeper they went into the rain forest, the worse the humidity got. And damn was it bad.

Four hours and still it hadn't rained yet. Rain forest, my ass. The girls' legs started to get tired. Paving a way through a rain forest as thick as the Amazon was no easy task. That, however, couldn't be said about their four companions. Their pace only slowed down to match that of Lara and Sam. Lara looked at the men walking in front of them.  
"So." She said. "Where are you guys from?" No reply.  
"You know, if it's as dangerous as your boss says it is, we might as well get acquainted. Might save our lives later on." No reply.  
Sam joined in. "If not for getting acquainted, do it for the sake of killing time. Deflecting large bugs and avoiding large snakes gets boring after a while, you know." No reply.  
"Maybe they don't speak English." Sam said while looking at Lara. Lara looked at the men skeptical.  
"No." Lara replied. "I'm pretty sure they speak English. These guys are professionals, how can they not speak English? The language of the professional and international world."  
"Hello?" Sam picked up a little twig while walking, aimed and threw it at one of the two men in front of them. Without looking back the man caught the twig, turned around and threw it back hitting Sam on the cheek, all without slowing down.  
"Hey, fuck you, bitch." Sam rubbed her cheek. It was actually quite funny and Lara laughed softly. She looked at the man with the quick reflexes who was still walking backwards. She then saw a small object flying towards that same man with high speed. Lara only realised it was an arrow with an iron tip when it had pierced the man's skull. It was as if the man his head was made of something soft, because he didn't even flinch when the arrow gently, but quickly, took a spot in his skull. The arrow was stuck halfway in his head, as if he was joking around with a fake arrow. The man took one more step and immediately collapsed. He wasn't joking around. Sam gave out a little screech of fear. Lara her instincts kicked in, she took a step to her left to lunge at Sam to get her to the ground, but she was sideswept midair by one of the two men behind her. When she hit the ground with the man, she saw that Sam got worked to the ground too by the other mercenary.  
"Stay down." Said the mercenary next to Lara. An American. How could he stay calm in this situation?! His colleague was just killed! The remaining man in the front sat on one knee and furiously, but focused, look at the surroundings. A small movement made him unload half of his magazine in that general area. After the ear deafening sounds of the FN SCAR powering through the STANAG magazine at a 625 rounds/min fire rate, a complete silence overcame them. Lara could only hear herself breath quickly. She looked around. Nothing moved, no sounds, no arrows were hurtling towards them. Just trees everywhere.  
Suddenly it was as if the floodgates from the skies were opened. The rain came pouring down in such an extent that it was getting harder to breath by the excessive water running over their faces. Their sight was limited to only a few feet. All of them were absolutely drenched in a matter of seconds. The dirt they were on quickly became mud and started streaming down their bodies.  
"Move!" The man next to Lara said. Lara responded quickly and got up, the mud still streaming down her face. She looked at Sam who was being pulled up by the other man. The man in the front started running towards the left of their original direction, while the rest followed. Lara could not see more than 6 feet in front of her. She put her hand above her eyes to try and improve her vision but it didn't help. They were running at full speed and she had to narrowly avoid some trees she couldn't see up until they were right in front of her.  
"Lara!" She heard Sam yell.  
"Sam! Just keep running! Follow them!" Lara couldn't see where Sam was, but was very grateful to hear her voice nearby. The only thing she could hear now was their footsteps through the mud and the unstoppable flood of water pouring down on them. She was running as fast as she could.  
They reached a river, but didn't stop. Instead they took another left and ran alongside the river. They ran for another five minutes until they reached an open area between the forest and the river. The man upfront stopped and so did Lara and Sam. The man in the back quickly turned around, got on one knee and lifted his rifle, expecting more unwanted visitors with arrows. The man in the front did the same, but in the opposite direction. Sam looked around in panic.  
"What do we do now?!" She yelled.  
"Get down and shut the fuck up." The man in the middle said and pushed her down. Lara did the same. Nobody moved anymore, while the rain wasn't getting any less. A minute passed, then five minutes passed, ten minutes. After what seemed an eternity, the man in the back got up. He pointed forward, along the river.  
"A cave. We'll set up camp there." He said. Sam was still in panic mode, but Lara grabbed her hand and whispered in her ear that everything was going to be alright, although she didn't even believe that herself.  
When they reached the cave it was dark, but the raining had stopped. The cave was next to the river, inside a hill. Sam and Lara sat on a rock in front of the cave, soaked, dirty and exhausted. One of the mercenaries walked away, probably started gathering some wood for the fire. The other two stood guard.  
When Lara finally caught her breath again. "Sorry, I have to ask. You seem like true professionals, why on earth did you agree to go on a mission like this? I think you are the kind of people who want to study their mission area before you set off? But instead you agreed to just escort two random girls in the rainforest while they advised you to arm yourself to the teeth?" One of the men turned his head towards Lara.  
"Because your father was a very respected man in the organisation."


	9. The Child

**The child**

"Care to pour me an..another one of your lovely drinks, missy?!" He shouted, obviously drunk.  
"I think you've had enough, Derek." Lara responded. Lara was standing behind the bar at the Nine Bells pub cleaning a beer glass. There was a convivial atmosphere at the pub, as always. People talking, laughing and drinking. The music in the background was loud enough to be heard, but not too loud as to interrupt people their conversations. The interior was mostly made of wood. The kind of wood that you would find in an old tavern. The bar was placed in the middle of the room in a square form. The tables were placed around the bar throughout the room. On one side was a podium where someone, or some band, would perform a song now and then.  
"Aww, c'mon! Just one more, eh!" The drunk man said.  
"Seriously Derek, you've had too many, go home." Lara put the cleaned beer glass away, turned around and grabbed a wine bottle and glass.  
"Care to join me then?" He replied. He was having a hard time standing up straight and had to grab the bar so he wouldn't fall over.  
Lara laughed. "I'm sure your wife would be very pleased with that." She poured the red wine in the glass, walked to the other side of the bar and handed it to another gentlemen.  
"How about a kiss before I go then?!" The drunk man shouted to Lara as she was walking back. He closed his eyes, leaned forward and pouted his lips.  
"If you go home now I'll think about it. How about that?" Lara put the wine bottle away.  
"I'll keep you to that!" He started walking away. "See ya tomorrow, sweetie!" He said while trying to wave back, which made him fall over. When he got up he almost knocked over a table on his way out.  
"Yeah, see you." Lara laughed.  
"What a prick." Alex said while looking back at the drunk man leave. He was sitting at the bar where Lara continued cleaning glasses.  
"Aww" Lara smiled. "Leave Derek alone. He's sweet."  
"What?! He's like fifty plus! Pervert." Alex looked down at his beer.  
"Hey, you know he didn't mean that. He's alright."  
"Whatever."  
"What are you? Jealous?" Lara grinned.  
Alex looked up and in Lara's eyes. Lara stopped grinning. Was he jealous?  
"Miss Croft." Lara's attention was diverted by a man in a black coat. "Could I have a minute of your time, please?" He asked.  
"I'm working. What is it about?"  
"Your father."  
Now Alex looked back at the man, as well. Lara stopped moving the cloth over the beer glass she was holding.  
"My father is dead." Lara said. "What is there to talk about?"  
"You don't want to know more about what happened to him?"  
Lara looked at the man dumbfounded, but she didn't answer.  
"Miss Croft?... Hello?"  
Alex now turned to Lara. "Lara…?"  
"Lara!"

"Lara!" Lara opened her eyes. She looked into Sam's eyes. "Jesus, finally. You're the lightest sleeper I know and yet I can't wake you up when you're sleeping in a cave inside of a rain forest?"  
Lara looked around. She was laying down in the rock cave, in her sleeping bag she had taken from the safe house. She looked to her left and realised it was light outside. Two of the mercenaries stood guard just outside the cave. Lara had asked them what they meant with her father being a respected member of Trinity. What kind of member? Since when? And what did he do? Why were Lara and Sam treated so badly if her father was a so called respected member? But they had refused to give any answers, even when Lara got mad and screamed at them. Since the moment this hell hole of a situation started, she wanted to ask questions about everything that had happened, or was happening. However, the only thing she got as a reply, instead of answers, were more questions to be asked.  
"How're you feeling? Were you dreaming?" Sam asked while Lara sat up.  
"Alright, I guess. And yeah. Just something silly." Lara answered while rubbing her eyes.  
"They say it's about another eight hours of traveling before we reach the archaeological site. If we leave now we can have a break after four hours and still reach it before nightfall."  
"You seem eager to go despite one of those four men being shot in the head with an arrow not so long ago." Lara replied.  
"The sooner we reach that site and find out what they want, the sooner we can leave this place."  
"You're forgetting that we don't even know what's there. Maybe it's Yamatai all over again."  
"Normally you're the brave one, Lara."  
"I am just being careful. Plus, I wouldn't like you ending up with an arrow in your face."  
"I got you to protect me. And don't forget about the big guys with big guns."  
"They're not as effective as we thought. There's three left."  
"Let's just go."  
Lara stood up and packed up her sleeping bag. "I'm sorry." She said.  
"For what?" Sam asked.  
"I don't know, being reluctant, I guess. I'm not scared, it's just tha-..."  
"You _are _scared." Sam interrupted her. Lara looked at Sam. "But that's okay." She continued. "I'd be more worried if you weren't scared."  
Sam walked out the cave and Lara followed her. They had eaten canned food the night before, and drank water so at least Lara felt regenerated.

After the journey progressed another two hours, Lara tried to initiate a dialogue with the men again.  
"Please just explain what happened to my father."  
"I don't know." The man in front of Lara and Sam. It was the same man who said her father was a member of Trinity. At least he was talking again.  
"What do you know? How do you know he was a member of Trinity?"  
"Because I've worked with him."  
"And? What did he do? I mean, did you kidnap him and force him to come with you guys too?"  
"No. He joined voluntarily. I don't know how he joined, but somehow your father got in contact with Trinity and seemed interested. It didn't take long before Trinity allowed him to join. Your father was an extraordinary man. Intelligent, charismatic, rich, large ambitions and willingness to travel where no one else would."  
"So he joined you guys to go on expeditions? That doesn't make any sense."  
"If you don't know the correct people or don't have the proper ties to the proper establishments, you can't go everywhere in the world, and do whatever you want at those places, no matter how many billions you have on your bank account. Some places are out of reach for civilians."  
"So he used Trinity to get to places that would otherwise be out of reach."  
"To some extent. But your father agreed to the philosophies of Trinity."  
"And those are?" Lara swiped across her face to remove a spider web she had just walked through.  
"I'm not the one to talk to about that."  
Lara didn't press as she didn't want him to go into silent mode again.  
"We were part of a larger group on the expedition when he disappeared. Were those Trinity's men?" She asked.  
"Some of them."  
"Were you one of them?"  
"No."  
"I want to know more about my father and what happened to him."  
"Trinity can enlighten you when we get back."  
"_If _we get back." Lara replied.  
The man looked back. "Perhaps." He said as he turned his head forward again.  
"He must've been important to the you, or Trinity, if you're willing to risk yourself on a mission like this for his daughter."  
"Correct."  
"Then I don't understand why Sam and I were treated so badly. Why not just invite us, as well?"  
"Some people suffer from jealousy, Miss Croft. Plus, who says we want you to join?"  
"Jealousy?" Lara asked surprised. "Of what?"  
"Enough talking for now. Let's press on."  
"But…" Lara wanted to continue talking, but Sam placed her hand on her shoulder and looked at her. She opened her eyes a bit wider as to warn her not to press him for more answers. It was better to be patient, he'd probably talk to them again later. Sam was right.

The three mercenaries kept their focus up. Lifting their gun up at every small sound or movement. Lara tried to keep focused too; they were still walking through a dangerous rain forest while, apparently, people wanted them dead. Well, people... Lara hoped that they were people, at least. But suppressing the thoughts and questions she had about her father was hard. A year after he disappeared Lara sought out to find the truth. She skipped school half the time and researched, traveled, asked and tried to find out more. She was unable to, as if someone was withholding the truth. It forced her into a spiral of depression and sadness of which she had to get out of. Sam helped her with this. While in the back of her mind she knew something was wrong, she tried to believe it was an accident during the expedition and her father had passed away. She banished the thoughts of the fate of her father and started picking up her life again. Up until now.

Lara and Sam shared a can of tuna while they sat down. The three men switched shifts between eating and standing guard. They were being extraordinarily careful. They were mindful of their surroundings at all times. Lara wondered why they weren't before their comrade got killed. Did they underestimate the mission? While the sun could hardly penetrate the thick forest, it was obvious that the sun was shining. The humidity had almost gotten unbearable, they had to drink regularly to prevent dehydration because they were sweating so much. Their skin was moist and it was harder to breathe than normally. Lara was hoping the rain forest would live up to its name and it started to rain soon. The temperature was getting unbearable, as well.  
Lara looked at Sam. She was scared but tried her best to hide it.  
"You okay, Sam?" Lara asked.  
Sam diverted her eyes from her plastic fork to Lara. "Yeah. I mean, as fine as I can be here, I guess. How're you?"  
"I'm good. But worried about what's ahead. It's not that far anymore."  
"About four hours, they say." Sam looked down at her food again. "I'm sorry about your dad."  
"What do you mean?" Lara asked.  
"I'm sorry you never found out what happened to him. I know how you feel about it. Sorry I tried to pull you away from finding out the truth."  
"No, it's good that you did. I wouldn't have found out on my own. Maybe there's another chance now."  
Sam looked at Lara again. "I hope so."  
Lara saw something move in the corner of her eye and she looked at Sam her leg. A tarantula was walking up her leg, at the height of her knee. Lara looked Sam in her eyes. She would properly freak out and attract everyone's sudden attention. And while they aren't deadly, their bite can hurt and cause some persistent discomfort.  
"What?" Sam asked.  
"Nothing." Lara said while she moved closer to Sam nonchalant.  
Sam tilted her head. "Seriously, what?" Then Lara made the mistake of looking at the large spider again. Sam followed her eyes and looked at her own knee. Her high pitched scream caused several birds in nearby trees to fly away. In a matter of a second the three men turned around and lifted their guns. Sam hit the spider of her knee and arose violently.  
"FUCK! Get it off me! Get it off, get it off! Where is it?!" Sam sort of danced around and quickly tapped all over her legs. Lara saw the spider fall off the second Sam had hit it. Its defensive moves were not to move anymore at all. It was on the ground and just stood there.  
"What the fuck is going on?" One of the men said.  
Lara laughed. "Just a spider, don't worry." Lara picked it up from behind at his body and walked a few yards and put it down in the bushes.  
"Jesus fucking Christ." Sam said while calming down. "I almost died of a heart attack."  
The three men lowered their weapons and turned back again.  
"Yeah, I'm never sitting down in this forest ever again, ever, ever." Sam continued while hugging herself standing up.  
"I'm sure you'll be fine, Sam." Lara said grinning.  
They finished their food and started moving again. Lara was surprised how smoothly the last few hours had been. After one of the mercenaries got killed she expected various horrible things to go down before they even reached their destination, but so far so good. No more arrows to the head or any other fatal stuff. Also, beside that extremely heavy rain fall for a few minutes, the rainforest wasn't treating them too bad either. That is, of course, if you don't count the countless mosquitos bites, muddy clothes and extremely humidity. Maybe they were lucky, but they hadn't run into any venomous critters. However, having said that, Lara and Sam were quite tired. Travelling through a rainforest wasn't an easy task. The ground was muddy. They had to step over logs, holes, walk around fallen trees and through creeks and rivers. They had to constantly check for any leeches and other pests. They had to apply insect repellent frequently and drink regularly. And, of course, deal with the extreme humidity. Even though this was only the second day they were journeying through the rainforest, the girls were utterly worn out.

After another five hours of walking they reached a dirt road. Lara looked to her left and followed the dirt road with her eyes. In the distance she could see an open area. This was the place they had to go to, now just for '_a few miles south.'  
_"There it is." Sam said. The two friends looked each other in the eyes. The three man had already started walking next to the dirt road towards the open area. The girls followed and after another ten minutes of walking they reached the point of interest. The area was surrounded by a wooden palisade. Scattered across the area were abandoned little houses and small trees. In the middle of the small village was an open spot, kind of like the town square, with a well in the middle. When they reached it Lara took a look down inside. Just darkness, probably empty. There was no rope or bucket attached to it. They stood there for a few seconds.  
"So." Lara broke the silence. "Since we have no idea where exactly we have to go, I suggest we spend the night here and start looking for this so called lost ancient city in the morning."  
One of the men pointed to the nearest house. "Let's set up camp inside."  
"Great." Sam said anxious. "Staying the night in this creepy place."  
"What do you mean creepy?" Lara asked while the group of five were walking towards the house.  
"Look at it!" Sam moved her arm around as if pointing in every direction. "Everything looks abandoned, but we're not even sure about that. The houses are made of such dark wood, it looks like they were burned down and then rebuilt with the same wood. This place just gives me the creeps." Lara looked around. She was kind of right, it _was_ creepy. There were no utility structures of any kind, just houses. Only houses, all of them of the same kind of dark wood. And who said they were all abandoned?"  
The inside of the houses contained absolutely nothing. Not even furniture. There was just the ground floor and it was one large room, that was it. The floor, walls and ceiling were all of the same kind of wood. There was only a door on the right side, and a large window, without glass, on the left. It gave a view over the town square and the houses across from it. They settled in and the girls talked for a few hours about everything. Lara tried to sway the conversation away from their current situation. Just talk about the stuff from the past, before this, before Yamatai. Just to get their minds off of now. When it started to get dark they put their gas lamp in the middle, lit it and placed their sleeping bags around it. The mercenaries, once again, took their turns standing guard. Always two of them at once, while one of them rested. It was completely dark outside while the girls were inside their sleeping bags. While Sam had fallen asleep, Lara sat up against the wall facing the window. She looked at the gas lamp. Odd, it wasn't attracting any mosquitoes. She looked at the man inside the house who's turn it was to rest. It was the man who talked to her earlier, she recognized him by the mud pattern across his vest from when they had hit the ground after that attack earlier.  
"You know, you can take your mask off if you want. It's not like I'm going to call the police or anything." Lara said softly as to not wake up Sam. No reply.  
"Can we talk about my father again?" Lara tried again.  
"No." He replied. Lara looked disappointed. She looked outside the window. The sky was completely clear. It was full moon outside which made the area well lit. She could still clearly see the houses across from the square.  
"Who says those houses are all abandoned?" Lara said while she let her view go across the houses.  
"That's what they're checking now." The man replied. Lara looked at him.  
"Just now?" She asked. "Why didn't they do that before?"  
"Because they're doing it now." The man didn't even look up. He was sitting down against the wall as well, about two yards away from Lara. His gun next to him, also against the wall. His legs and arms were crossed and was looking down. He was probably trying to get some sleep. Lara looked outside again. The sky was so pretty, she could clearly see a lot of stars. When her eyes crossed the well in the middle of the settlement again, she noticed something odd about it. She pinched her eyes and noticed there were two things placed on the top of the side of the well. Two black things. They moved. They moved? Lara got up. The man next to her didn't respond, probably asleep or he would've already gotten up too. Lara walked towards the window and looked closer. Those two black things were hands. Just when Lara had realized that, a man pulled himself up from inside the well. The man had the darkest skin Lara had ever seen on a person, he was pitch black. When he got out the well he just stood there. His eyes were completely white. Lara was either too far away to see his pupils or he didn't have any. He was utterly skinny. You could clearly see his ribs, even from this distance and his arms and legs looked like sticks.  
"Jesus Christ…" Lara muttered softly.  
Suddenly the person looked directly at Lara. No pupils. This situation had startled Lara to the point where she couldn't move anymore. A man had just climbed outside the wall in the middle of the night, and was looking directly at her without any pupils. He wasn't moving a muscle. Fuck, she had never witnessed such an eerily event as this. She felt goosebumps all over her arms.  
"I..I.." Lara stammered. She wanted to wake the man behind her, or at least get his gun. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. Lara's reflexes kicked in and she quickly grabbed the hand, turned around and pulled down the hand so the person, now in front of her, would bend forward. With her other hand she reached for the person's throat. It was Sam.  
"Wow...Easy, Lara." Sam said softly, smiling.  
"Sam, Jesus fucking Christ!" Lara released her friend. "Don't scare me like that! Look out the window, there's a man there! He just climbed out off the well! Holy fucking shit!" Lara turned to the man sleeping against the wall and wanted to wake him. She ran towards him but before she reached him there was a knock on the closed door of the house. She quickly turned her head towards it.  
"Who the fuck is that?" She turned back to the man and kicked him. "Wake the fuck up!" No response from him. Lara heard the door open and promptly turned around. It was opened by Sam.  
"Sam! No! What are you doing?!" The door was opened and the man that had just climbed outside the well was standing in the door opening. No one moved for about five seconds, but then the pitch black man stepped aside and spread his right arm and pointed towards the well, as to let Sam pass. Without hesitation Sam started walking outside the door. Dumbfounded, Lara looked at her.  
"Sam, where are you going?! Stop! Come back!" The man lightly stroked Sam her hair when she stepped outside. Sam didn't react and just kept on walking. The man looked back at Lara. His eyes penetrated hers. She couldn't move anymore, her vision got distorted and a huge headache struck out of no where. She fell over. The man walked outside and the door promptly shut behind him.  
"Sam...please...wait…" Lara grabbed her own head, the pain was too much. She tried to get up but only managed to get on her knees. She turned around to look at the mercenary, but he had fallen over to his side. She crawled to his gun and grabbed it, it was heavier than she expected. She inhaled and exhaled properly a few times and tried to stand up again. This time she managed. The pain in her head was getting less. She rammed open the door and stormed outside. She could barely see the well. She saw Sam look back at her just before she jumped inside the well.  
"NO! SAM!" Lara yelled. The black man jumped after her immediately. Lara started to run, as much as she was able to do that, towards the well. She tripped a few times, as her vision still wasn't optimal and her head felt like it was going to explode any second. She noticed a substance in front of the well. It looked black, but she realised it was red by the time she reached the well. Blood.  
"Oh, shit. Fuck, fuck, oh fuck…" Her heart raced like it had never before. She looked at the blood. It was a pattern. No, a sentence. There was something written on the ground with the blood. She ran and stood in front of it. _THE CHILD HAS ARRIVED._ She stood still and gasped at it.  
"Oh fuck…" She tried her best to hold her tears back. "What the fuck, Sam." She realised there should still be two more mercenaries around.  
"HELP! Heeeelp!" She screamed on the top of her lungs. She was breathing exceedingly quick. After a minute passed of screaming without any reply she walked up to the well and yelled down.  
"Sam! Saaam! Sam! Can you hear me?! SAM!" No reply, but her own echoing down the well. She climbed on the side of the well and looked down.  
"Oh shit...shit, shit shit…" Lara muttered. She took a long breath.

And then jumped.


End file.
